Record heat takes its toll on raptor nestlings

Across the western U.S. and Canada, wildlife rehabilitation centers are reporting young birds of prey jumping out of their nests before they can fly to escape the region’s historic heat wave. The Washington Post reports a wildlife rehabilitation center in rural Oregon received “three months’ worth of birds” in three days. A center in Northern California said June represented a “hawkpocalypse.” Portland Audubon says in took in over 100 Cooper’s hawks over four days, compared to about a dozen in a typical year. The OWL Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society in British Columbia tweeted, ““Our ICU has never been so full.”

““I think these events really are wake-up call. That climate change is here, that the impacts are becoming more and more visible,” Bob Sallinger, director of conservation at Portland Audubon, told the Post.

Read more in the Washington Post.