Warming Imperils Maryland Species

The Baltimore oriole is the state bird of Maryland. The brown pelican is the state bird of Louisiana. But now, as climate change seems to be leaving its first footprints here, local scientists worry that the Washington area may be slowly trading one for the other.

About 1,000 brown pelican chicks hatched in Maryland last year. That was about 1,000 more of the birds, ungainly fish-eaters comfortable in the steamy Southeast, than there were in the state in 1985.

The oriole, by contrast, might be gone from here in a century. Researchers say that as Maryland's climate warms, the bird could shift its territory to the north, becoming, perhaps, the Philadelphia oriole.

from the Washington Post