The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Experts say sea level rise is threatening coastal bird
As sea levels continue to rise, conservationists work hard to ensure the future of Connecticut’s 98plus miles of coastal marshes.
Connecticut’s coastal marshes help protect communities from ravaging storms and battering waves, and many species, including the salt marsh sparrow, call them home.
To safeguard marshes, Sacred Heart University has positioned large Swisscheeselike concrete balls in front of a section of a marsh at Stratford Point and Audubon Connecticut manages the site. Scientists call them reef balls, and they reduce the impact of slapping waves.
A scientist who worked on the project says salt marshes and their inhabitants are better off thanks to the hollow concrete orbs.
“There’s some hope for salt marshes, and salt marsh sparrows,” said Genevieve Nuttall, conservation programs associate at Audubon Connecticut. “Instead of killing a marsh, we actually grew one.”
Reef balls provide moderate optimism for Nuttall, but the person leading the charge on salt marsh sparrow research says current conservation projects may not be enough for salt marsh sparrows that nest in these salt marshes.
“It’s positive that people are starting to pay even a little bit of attention and try to experiment, but given that these birds have as little as 20 years, not 50 or 60 years, it’s just not clear we can solve the problem fast enough to be able to prevent the extinction,” said Chris Elphick, an ornithologist at the University of Connecticut.
Due to more frequent nest flooding, the salt marsh sparrow — which nests exclusively in salt marshes on the Atlantic coastline from Maine to Virginia — is predicted to join the likes of the dodo bird and passenger pigeon within the next 51 years.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology currently lists the sparrow as a priority bird as sea level rise fueled by climate change is drowning it out of existence.
Population decline
Elphick says that if we started 20 years ago, maybe the outlook for salt marsh sparrows would be better.
His data projects the point of no return will be reached somewhere between the 2030s and 2060s, meaning that nest flooding will occur every two weeks. Two weeks is too frequent for the nests and their delicate contents, he said. Though this critical point hasn’t been reached yet, scientists are seeing the destruction taking place.
A former student of Elphick’s has witnessed the population decline.
“I’ve worked on marshes where in 2007 I could go out and capture 50 salt marsh sparrows in a day very easily,” said Jennifer Walsh, a researcher with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “I’d return to the same marshes in 20152016 and maybe see four birds on the whole marsh.”
Populations are dying fast. Elphick says 75 percent of the global population of salt marsh sparrows has disappeared since the 1990s. That’s roughly 9 percent of the population dying every year.
“If you can assume that the rate of decline continues, that suggests that the species is on a very rapid trajectory towards extinction,” said Elphick.
Nesting
Sea level rise is making it difficult for the species to nest successfully.
Their nesting territory is in the high marsh and they build their nests right above the high tide line in the grass. Walsh says looking down into the opening of her 12ounce coffee cup reminds her of looking into a sparrow’s nest.
High marsh areas usually flood about every 28 days.
“Salt marsh sparrows have a nesting cycle that’s about 2627 days long,” Walsh said.
But tides are getting too high. “Historically this (2627 days) has been enough to get them through these high tides, but tides are getting higher due to sea level rise, and we’re having these more unpredictable storms, and the frequency and duration of storms is cutting into their nesting cycle and making it harder for them to fledge offspring,” Walsh said.
Where the species is adapted to living is no longer safe.
“Basically the places that are safe within these marshes that these birds have evolved to be able to use are becoming less and less safe even though they are specialized and are able to identify these good spots, these spots are getting worse, and worse, and worse,” said Elphick.
The tides are changing too fast, and sea level rise shows no signs of stopping.
Rising water
Data from NASA shows sea levels rising at 3.3 millimeters a year. If rise continues at this rate, then 100 years from now water levels will be over a foot higher, and this will mean more devastating high tides. Levels a foot higher are impactful for coastal locations like Miami, New York City, Bridgeport and New Haven.
Connecticut’s communities are already taking on water.
“All of our coastal towns, not only in this state, but across the Atlantic seaboard are realizing that the sea is rising, their infrastructure is getting flooded on a much more constant manner, and during high tides a lot of roads are underwater where 20 years ago they weren’t,” said Min Huang, a migratory bird program leader at the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Sea level rise is flooding towns, diminishing salt marshes and expected to cost Connecticut a pretty penny.
According to SeaLevelRise.org, “There are already over 7,000 properties at risk from frequent tidal flooding in Connecticut. The state is planning over $2 billion in sea level rise solutions, which include restoration projects, catastrophic flood prevention, and building seawalls.”
With sea level rise, coastal wetlands across Connecticut and the U.S. are disappearing.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, more than half of all of America’s wetlands have been lost since the 1780s. Connecticut is one of 10 states that has lost over 70 percent of its wetland acreage since the 1780s.
If Connecticut and other areas lose their coastal marshes, they lose the benefits that come with them.
The value of marshes
With dwindling wetlands, we lose important biodiversity and natural storm barriers, Walsh said.
“I think preserving salt marsh habitats should speak to everyone because salt marshes provide barriers from coastal storms, and it’s been shown that places with active and healthy salt marsh ecosystems have saved millions, and millions of dollars,” said Walsh.
Research suggests she’s right. “We estimate that coastal wetlands saved more than US $625 million in avoided flood damages from Hurricane Sandy across the northeastern USA,” wrote Siddharth Narayan and others in the 2016 report “Coastal Wetlands and Damage Reduction.”
Lost coastal marshes means communities inland lose a natural barrier from clobbering storms and thumping waves.
“If you think of salt marshes as a buffer, the storm will hit the marsh instead of the house, which will help prevent an insurance crisis,” said Nuttall.
On top of that, Nuttall says marshes are responsible for absorbing and storing greenhouse gases.
Less marshland results in less protection, and storms hit local communities harder, causing millions more in damage.
Mass extinction
We’re not just losing marshes, though. According to scientists, fading coastal wetlands and the extinction of the salt marsh sparrow are emblematic of a larger issue: climate change and the degradation of Earth’s ecosystems.
Elphick says the salt marsh sparrow is the proverbial “canary in the coal mine.”
Researchers say the sparrow likely can’t be saved.
“A single species like a sparrow is not terribly important,” Elphick said. “The trouble is we’re taking this attitude with hundreds of species, if not millions of species. That continuous erosion of biodiversity does have repercussions on how the ecosystem works, and it impoverishes the variety of life on the planet, and has aesthetic, ethical, as well as economic consequences for us.”