Scientists Determine How Marsh Birds Survive Typhoons and Natural Disasters Such as Hurricane Zeta

Scientists wanted to determine how marsh birds survive dangerous hurricanes and natural disasters such as Hurricane Zeta. Zeta is ravaging the Gulf Coast and Louisiana, and people know what to do. It is interesting to find out how wildlife copes with the natural disaster.

Coastal dwellers have adaptive abilities that deal with such events. Is it any different than this year has produced so many named storms?

Wildlife ecologists wanted to know the answer. They are currently looking at how marsh bird species like Rallus crepitans or clapper rails adapt to these storms on the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama.

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The importance of coastal wetlands and marshes

Coastal wetlands count as crucially important wildlife habitats and ecosystems. These areas have birds, fish, and shellfish; they filter the water and protect coastlines. They have a lot of important organisms contained in them that play important roles in the cycle of life.

The research

The researchers focused on the clapper rails, which are slender birds with gray and brown feathers with short tails. They have long toes and legs for walking on the soft marsh mud, with long bills that can probe their habitat for food items. They are residents of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts.

They rely on coastal, tidal marshes where they hide among vegetation and eat fiddler crabs and other prey. They build their nests in tall vegetation hidden from predators. They can also raise their nests as protection from flooding due to extra strong storms and high tides. Rail embryos can survive being submerged for hours.

Riding the storms

As tropical storms strike, several factors, such as the position of the storm, flooding, and wind speed influence their effect on the birds. They usually ride out these storms by relocating to areas in the marsh that are higher.

During extensive flooding, the birds can swim or be swept to another location. And even if a storm can cause a decrease in the population of clapper rails as the next spring comes, they can usually rebound and usually recover their population within one or two years.

Rebounding from the disaster

However, during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, many years passed before the rails recovered their previous population level.

The researchers now put radio tags on the rails to help determine their life span. It will help in determining mortalities and population declines that can be correlated with weather events.

Complicated by humans

In the last one and a half centuries, humans caused extreme disruption in ecosystems. Draining the marshes, creating roads, reinforcing the shorelines, and generally altering the natural environment that the birds live in have severely affected many species.

Birds like clapper rails and various wildlife have adaptive traits against natural disasters. However, coastal development, freak huge storms, and sea-level rise made it increasingly difficult for them and their habitats to quickly recover.

According to Paul Ehrlich, a biologist, there comes a point when nature will lose too many key species needed for a stable ecosystem so that it cannot maintain the balance of the environment needed by everyone - including humans - to live.

It is thus important to preserve marsh birds and marshes and other environments to ensure a livable future and survival from natural disasters such as hurricanes, including Hurricane Zeta.