Away10 U.S. Endangered Species Threatened by Climate-fueled Superstorms

A Report from the Center for Biological Diversity

By Shaye Wolf, Ph.D.

October 2019

Blown

INTRODUCTION

The climate crisis is making hurricanes deadlier for people and wildlife alike. Particularly vulnerable are coastal endangered species, many of which have already been reduced to a few small, isolated populations.

This report highlights the increased extinction risk from superstorms to 10 endangered species in the United States, from the Puerto Rican parrot to the Florida manatee. Taking transformative action to slash greenhouse gas pollution, restoring imperiled species and habitats, and defending the Endangered Species Act are critical to securing a future for coastal wildlife.

KEY FINDINGS

To determine which species are especially at risk from climate change-fueled hurricanes, scientists with the Center for Biological Diversity analyzed data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service and scientific literature. People and wildlife are both threatened because climate change is making hurricanes stronger, boosting rainfall during storms, and increasing the height of storm surges — the huge walls of water that crash into coastlines during storms. This report examines 10 of the most threatened species.

10 U.S. Endangered Species Threatened by Climate Change-fueled Hurricanes

Species at Risk Population Size

Location Key Storm Threats

1. Puerto Rican parrot

Fewer than 100 in the wild

Puerto Rico Hurricane winds can topple nesting trees and strip forests bare of fruits, seeds and leaves the parrot relies on for food. In 2017 Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated Puerto Rico, killing nearly half the wild parrot population.

2. Attwater’s prairie chicken

Fewer than 100 in the wild

Texas Hurricane flooding threatens these rare prairie chickens, restricted to just two coastal sites in Texas. In 2017 Hurricane Harvey’s record rainfall drowned 32 of the remaining 42 birds at Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge.

3. Black-capped petrel

500 to 1,000 breeding pairs

Gulf Stream waters from Florida to North Carolina

Hurricane-force winds can push these seabirds far inland, where they weaken and die. In 1996 Hurricane Fran killed at least 26 petrels and stranded many. The intensification of hurricanes due to the climate crisis is projected to nearly double black-capped petrel deaths over the next century.

4. Florida key deer

About 800 Florida Keys Eighty-six percent of Key deer habitat is less than 3 feet above sea level, making them highly vulnerable to storm surge. In 2017 Hurricane Irma pummeled the Keys with an eight-foot surge, flooding the deer’s freshwater drinking holes and reducing the population by 23 percent.

5. Perdido Key beach mouse

About 400 to 800

Alabama, Florida

Hurricane winds and storm surge can kill beach mice and wipe out their sand dune habitat. The Perdido Key beach mouse was almost eliminated by Hurricane Opal in 1995, and the strong 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons again decimated populations.

6. Florida manatee

~8,810 Florida Strong hurricanes can push manatees far out to sea or strand them on land. In 2016 Hurricane Hermine left seven manatees stranded in a golf-course pond, while a mother and her calf were stranded a mile inland in a forest mud puddle.

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7. Frosted flatwoods salamander

90 percent loss in population since 2000

Florida, Georgia, South Carolina

Hurricane storm surge can flood the salamander’s freshwater breeding ponds, killing eggs and young. In 2018 Hurricane Michael pushed 10 feet of water across the salamander’s stronghold at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, causing the number of young salamanders to plummet.

8. Green sea turtle

~8,500 turtles nesting in Florida

Nesting beaches in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands

Hurricane storm surge can wash out turtle nests, drowning eggs and hatchlings, and strand turtles far inland. Green sea turtle nests are particularly vulnerable because their nesting season overlaps most with hurricane season. In 2017 Hurricane Harvey stranded a young green sea turtle 50 miles inland on a Texas road.

9. Elkhorn coral 3 percent of its former abundance

Florida, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands

Hurricane storm surge breaks apart corals already weakened by ocean warming and acidification. The catastrophic 2005 hurricane season was responsible for half the loss of elkhorn coral cover in the upper Florida Keys between 2004 and 2010.

10. Schaus swallowtail butterfly

About 40 to 300 adults

Florida Keys Hurricane winds and storm surge threaten the two remaining populations on the low-lying northern Florida Keys. In 1992 Hurricane Andrew nearly wiped out the species, flooding the butterfly’s population stronghold on Biscayne National Park with a 10-foot storm surge.

DETAILED ANALYSIS

Climate Change Is Supercharging Hurricanes

Human-caused climate change is multiplying the destructive power of hurricanes in three major ways: It is boosting their intensity, rainfall and storm surge.

1. Intensity: Because hurricanes are fueled by heat, warming ocean temperatures are increasing the strength of Atlantic hurricanes1 and allowing them to intensify more quickly.2 We are now experiencing the longest streak of Category 5 superstorms on record: Hurricane Dorian (2019) was the fifth Category 5 hurricane to form in the Atlantic in four years, following Michael (2018), Maria (2017), Irma (2017) and Matthew (2016). During 2017 and 2018 alone, five major hurricanes cost the United States at least 3,269 lost lives and $325 billion in damages.3

2. Rainfall: Warmer air holds more moisture, causing heavier rainfall during hurricanes.4 In 2017 Hurricane Harvey dropped record amounts of rainfall, topping 60 inches over southeastern Texas,5 unleashing catastrophic flooding that left 89 dead, displaced more than 30,000 people, and damaged or destroyed more than 200,000 homes and businesses.6 Studies estimate that global warming made Harvey’s downpour 3.5 times more likely and at least 19 percent more intense.7

3. Storm surge: Rising sea levels due to climate change are causing higher storm surge — the enormous walls of water pushed onto the coast by storms. Large storm surge events of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina have already doubled in response to global warming, and are projected to increase in frequency by twofold to sevenfold for each degree Celsius of temperature rise.8

As the climate crisis worsens, Atlantic hurricane intensity, rainfall and storm surge are projected to increase further, making hurricanes ever-more destructive.9

Climate-fueled Superstorms Threaten Endangered Species

Hurricanes are natural disturbance events, and coastal species and ecosystems have adaptations to help them weather big storms. But today’s supercharged hurricanes — with greatly increased intensity, storm surge and

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rainfall — are more destructive to wildlife and habitats.

Making matters worse, coastal ecosystems have been degraded by development, pollution and infrastructure like levees that interrupt natural flows, weakening ecosystem resilience to storms. And many coastal endangered species that were once widespread and abundant are now reduced to a few small, isolated populations that are at higher extinction risk from storm damage.

Intense hurricanes cause massive storm surge, flooding, severe winds and scattered debris that can kill or injure animals and plants and damage habitats. A 2019 review of the ecological responses to extreme weather events found that the main effects of hurricanes are negative: Following a hurricane, species tend to be less successful rearing young and can suffer increased death, population decline, habitat loss or local extirpation.10

In contrast most of the species that benefit tend to be invasive.11 For example, hurricanes have helped spread the invasive lionfish in the Caribbean, which harms coral reefs,12 and soybean rust disease was likely transported from South America during Hurricane Ivan.13

Analysis of At-risk SpeciesBelow we highlight 10 U.S. endangered species that are particularly vulnerable to superstorms.

Puerto Rican ParrotThe Puerto Rican Parrot — a dazzling, emerald-green bird with a scar let forehead and turquoise-tipped wings — may once have numbered a million birds. But the parrots, which depend on trees for nesting cavities, fruits and seeds, were hard-hit by the extensive logging of Puerto Rico’s forests and by poaching. The population dwindled to just 13 birds in the wild in 1975.

With help from a captive-breeding program, the parrots started a modest comeback, which was abruptly set back when Hurricane Hugo cut the population in half in 1989. The species’ recovery team decided to establish a second self-sustaining wild population to buffer the parrots from extinction — which paid off. In September 2017 two catastrophic hurricanes, Irma and Maria, devastated Puerto Rico just two weeks apart, stripping the forests bare, toppling nesting trees, and killing nearly half the wild population. While the long-established population in El Yunque National Forest was devastated, with only two of the 56 wild birds surviving, most of the parrots in the second wild population at Rio Abajo State Forest survived, as well as the more than 400 parrots in captive-breeding centers.

Attwater’s Prairie ChickenUp to one million Attwater’s prairie chickens once graced the coastal prairies of Texas and Louisiana. In spring males fill their yellow air sacs and project their booming calls across the sea of grass to attract mates. But after agriculture and development destroyed 99 percent of their native prairie habitat, Attwater’s prairie chickens disappeared from Louisiana and were reduced to below 50 birds in the wild by 2003.

Today wild Attwater’s prairie chickens live in just two vulnerable locations on the Texas coast — with most at the remnant native prairie of Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge near Houston. In 2017 Hurricane Harvey struck the Houston area as a Category 4 storm, dropping a record-breaking 60 inches of rainfall that flooded the refuge. Eighty percent of the small wild population of 42 birds drowned, with only 5 of 29 hens surviving the floodwaters. Fortunately hundreds of prairie chickens in captive-breeding facilities survived to help rebuild the wild population.

Puerto Rican parrot courtesy USFWS

Attwater’s prairie chicken courtesy NASA/Lauren Harnett3

Black-capped Petrel Black-capped petrels are graceful, black-and-white seabirds that forage in Gulf Stream waters from Florida to North Carolina and historically nested on several islands in the Caribbean. They were thought to be extinct through much of the 20th century, the victims of habitat destruction, human hunting and predation by introduced mongooses and rats. But in the 1980s, they were discovered nesting in burrows on the steep forested cliffs of the island of Hispaniola, likely only numbering 500 to 1,000 breeding pairs.

Because black-capped petrels soar higher over the ocean than other seabirds, they are thought to be more susceptible to being blown inland by hurricanes14 and have been found stranded as far as the Great Lakes and Canada.

Strong hurricanes have been documented to kill dozens of black-capped petrels, with others found alive but stranded far inland, where they will likely perish.15 In 1996 Hurricane Fran, a Category 3 storm, killed at least 26 petrels and stranded many others. The intensification of hurricane strength due to the climate crisis is projected to nearly double the number of black-capped petrel deaths over the next century, placing this highly endangered species at even greater risk.16

Florida Key DeerThe endangered Florida Key deer, a miniature subspecies of white-tailed deer, lives only on the low-lying Florida Keys, with three-quarters on just two islands. Key deer were nearly eradicated by habitat loss and poaching, plummeting to just 25 individuals in the 1950s, and although the population has grown, they face ongoing threats from car collisions, sprawl, disease and the climate crisis.

Eighty-six percent of Key deer habitat is less than 3 feet above sea level, putting them at high risk from hurricane storm surge. In 2017 Hurricane Irma hit the Keys as a Category 4 storm, pummeling the islands with an eight-foot storm surge and reducing the Key deer population by 23 percent.17 Deer were found crushed by debris and impaled by wind-thrown objects. Adding to the damage, Irma’s storm surge flooded critical freshwater watering holes for the deer with saltwater. Fortunately biologists were able to put out kiddie pools, filled with freshwater, to help the thirsty deer until rain replenished the natural supply.

Despite these increasing threats, in August 2019 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under the Trump administration announced its intention to strip Endangered Species Act protection from Florida Key deer, jeopardizing the future of the species.

Beach MiceSix endangered subspecies of big-eyed, thumb-sized, sandy-colored beach mice live in the coastal sand dunes of Florida and Alabama. Due to rampant coastal development, beach mice have been reduced to a few, isolated populations in small areas of their historic range.

Strong hurricanes pose an extinction risk to these scattered populations by killing the mice and wiping out their dune habitat,18 and consecutive hurricanes dramatically increase this risk.19 The Perdido Key Beach mouse was almost eliminated by Hurricane Opal, which hit the Gulf Coast as a Category 4 storm in 1995. The subspecies had

Black-capped petrel by Patrick Coin, CC-BY-SA

Florida Key deer courtesy USFWS

Perdido Key beach mouse courtesy USFWS4

dwindled down to just one population at Gulf State Park in Alabama, prompting the recovery team to establish a second population at Gulf Islands National Seashore. Not long afterward Opal wiped out the Gulf State Park population, but mice in the newly established population survived.20 The active hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005 knocked the population down again to very few mice. With the increasing threat from hurricanes, the beach mouse’s survival depends on protecting and restoring dune habitat and establishing multiple healthy populations.

Florida ManateeNicknamed “sea cows” because of their fondness for sea grass and slow-moving nature, Florida manatees inhabit Florida’s coastal waters, swimming inland into springs and rivers when it gets cold. Sadly these gentle giants face severe threats from boat strikes, habitat loss and temperature extremes caused by the climate crisis: Cold snaps can kill manatees, and warm waters spawn deadly toxic algal blooms.

Intense hurricanes are also a threat. Long-term studies have found that adult manatee survival drops significantly after strong hurricanes.21 Although they tend to hunker down in sheltered waters during storms, hurricane storm surge can push manatees out to sea, injure them with debris and destroy the seagrass beds that they rely on for food.

They can also get stranded when the high waters recede, and manatees have ended up in drainage ditches, roads and people’s backyards. In 2016 Hurricane Hermine left seven manatees stranded in a golf-course pond, while a mother and her calf were discovered a mile inland in a mud puddle in the forest.

Frosted Flatwoods SalamanderThe frosted flatwoods salamander is a specialist of the longleaf pine flatwoods of the southeastern coastal plain, spending much of its life underground in burrows. Only about 3 percent of the salamander’s habitat remains, with the rest lost to development, agriculture and logging. The animals have been reduced to a few isolated populations within their historic range.

The salamander’s coastal habitat is highly vulnerable to hurricane storm surge. In 2018 Category 5 Hurricane Michael pushed 10 feet of water across St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in the Florida Panhandle — one of the few remaining salamander strongholds. The salty storm surge flooded the ephemeral freshwater ponds where the salamanders lay their eggs, which is dangerous to the eggs and larvae that may not be able to survive in salty water. The following spring scientists found very few young salamanders in breeding ponds on the refuge.22

Sea TurtlesSea turtles have swum the world’s oceans since the time of the dinosaurs. But due to ongoing threats from capture in fishing gear, poaching, coastal development and global warming, sea turtles are still at a fraction of their historic numbers, with all six sea turtle species found in U.S. waters at risk of extinction.

Sea turtle nesting on the sandy beaches of the southeastern United States overlaps with hurricane season, which poses a number of dangers. Hurricane storm surge can flood and wash out turtle nests, drowning eggs and hatchlings. Strong hurricanes have been documented to substantially lower the number of eggs that hatch and hatchlings that emerge from nests.23 Green sea turtles are particularly vulnerable to nest destruction because their late-summer nesting season overlaps most with hurricane season.

Florida manatee courtesy USFWS

Frosted flatwoods salamander courtesy Katie O’Donnell, USGS

Green sea turtle by Alexander Vasenin5

Turtles of all ages can be injured or killed when they are stranded far inland by the storm surge. A young green sea turtle was rescued on a Texas road 50 miles inland after Hurricane Harvey. Hurricanes can also destroy seagrass beds that turtles rely on for food and can release toxic chemicals from damaged industrial plants — one of the major harms from Hurricane Harvey.

Caribbean CoralsKnown as the rainforests of the ocean, coral reefs cover less than 1 percent of the ocean floor yet support 25 percent of all marine creatures. Yet coral reefs are in crisis: Half of the world’s coral reefs have been lost,24 and one-third of reef-building coral species are at risk of extinction,25 including seven species found in the waters of Florida and the Caribbean. Rising ocean temperatures and acidification caused by greenhouse gas pollution are the biggest threats, but intense hurricanes add to the harm.

Strong hurricanes can devastate coral reefs when storm surge breaks corals apart and overturns colonies. A two-decade-long study in the Caribbean found that coral cover was reduced by an average of 17 percent the year following a hurricane, with more intense hurricanes causing greater damage.26

In the Florida Reef Tract, hurricanes are a major driver of decline of endangered elkhorn and staghorn corals. Half of the decline in elkhorn coral cover in the upper Florida Keys between 2004 and 2010 occurred during the catastrophic 2005 hurricane season that hit South Florida with four hurricanes.27 Periods without strong hurricanes are important to allow for coral reef recovery.

Schaus Swallowtail ButterflyThe Schaus swallowtail butterfly — with its five-inch wingspan and beautiful yellow, black and brown stained-glass pattern — historically lived in tropical hardwood hammocks of South Florida from Miami to the Keys, relying on wild lime and torchwood trees for rearing its young. But most of the butterfly’s habitat has been lost to development, and further harm from pesticide spraying and over-collecting reduced the butterfly to a few isolated populations by the 1970s.

Strong hurricanes pose a threat to the remaining populations, which are restricted to two low-lying islands in the northern Keys. In 1992 Hurricane Andrew directly hit the butterfly’s population stronghold on Biscayne National Park as a Category 5 storm, flooding the island with 10-foot storm surge and leveling the butterfly’s habitat.

Fortunately, just months before, scientists at the University of Florida had started a captive-breeding program for the butterfly in a lab in Gainesville. Reintroduction from the captive program helped save the butterflies from extinction. In 2017 the captive-breeding program again proved critical when Hurricane Irma ravaged the butterfly’s habitat.

How to Help Species Threated by Climate-fueled HurricanesThree key actions are critical for saving endangered species that face a growing extinction risk from climate change-fueled superstorms:

1. Support rapid, large-scale government action to break the stranglehold the fossil fuel industry has on our energy and political systems: Urgent cuts in greenhouse gas pollution, undertaken by the government at every level, are critical for avoiding devastating harms from the climate crisis, including the escalating damages from climate-charged superstorms.

Elkhorn coral courtesy NPS

Schaus swallowtail courtesy USFWS

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that global greenhouse emissions must be cut by half in the next decade and nearly eliminated by 2050 to avoid catastrophic climate harms.28 We must demand that local, state and federal officials confront the climate emergency and curb the single greatest contributor to the climate crisis — fossil fuels — by implementing a plan to rapidly phase out fossil fuel production and speed a just transition to 100 percent clean, renewable energy.

2. Protect and restore imperiled coastal species and ecosystems: Restoring imperiled coastal species to healthy, abundant and widespread populations is critical for lowering their extinction risk from superstorms. Protecting and restoring healthy, intact coastal ecosystems also boosts species’ resilience to the climate crisis by increasing habitat connectivity, climate refugia and genetic diversity. In return, healthy coastal ecosystems provide important protection from storms by absorbing storm surge, reducing wave energy and wave heights, and slowing erosion.29

In short, protecting and restoring living shorelines — including healthy coral reefs, seagrass beds, kelp forests, marshes and oyster reefs — benefits biodiversity while buffering the coasts and helping prevent devastating loss of life and property.

3. Defend the Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act is one of the world’s most powerful and successful laws for protecting imperiled wildlife. It has a remarkable track record of pulling species back from the brink of extinction and putting them on the road to recovery. The Act has been instrumental in reducing extinction risk for numerous coastal species threatened by climate-fueled superstorms by increasing their numbers, range and population health, making them more resilient to hurricane damage. With the Act facing unprecedented attacks by the Trump administration, defending this bedrock law, and climate threatened species like the Florida Key deer that could lose their protection under Trump, is more important than ever.

Endnotes1 Elsner, James B. et al., The increasing intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones, 455 Nature 92 (2008); Saunders, Mark A. & Adam S. Lea, Large contribution of sea surface warming to recent increase in Atlantic hurricane activity, 451 Nature 557 (2008); Holland, G. & C.L. Bruyère, Recent intense hurricane response to global climate change, 42 Climate Dynamics 617 (2014); Fraza, Erik & James B. Elsner, A climatological study of the effect of sea-surface temperature on North Atlantic hurricane intensification, 36 Physical Geography 395 (2015); U.S. Global Change Research Program, Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Vol. I (2017), https://science2017.globalchange.gov/ at 257; U.S. Global Change Research Program, Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States, Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II (2018), https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/ at 74.2 Bhatia, Kieran T. et al., Recent increases in tropical cyclone intensification rates, 10 Nature Communication 635 (2019).3 NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (2019), https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/.4 Emanuel, Kerry, Assessing the present and future probability of Hurricane Harvey’s rainfall 2017, 114 PNAS 12681 (2017); Keellings, David & José J. Hernández Ayala, Extreme rainfall associated with Hurricane Maria over Puerto Rico and its connections to climate variability and change, 46 Geophysical Research Letters 2964 (2019).5 NOAA and National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Harvey, National Hurricane Center (9 May 2018), https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL092017_Harvey.pdf.6 NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (2019). https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/.7 Risser, Mark D. & Michael F. Wehner, Attributable human-induced changes in the likelihood and magnitude of the observed extreme precipitation during Hurricane Harvey, 44 Geophysical Research Letters 12,457 (2017).8 Grinsted, Aslak et al., Homogeneous record of Atlantic hurricane surge threat since 1923, 109 PNAS 19601 (2012); Grinsted, Aslak et al., Projected hurricane surge threat from rising temperatures, 110 PNAS 5369 (2013).9 U.S. Global Change Research Program, Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Vol. I (2017), https://science2017.globalchange.gov/ at 257; U.S. Global Change Research Program, Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States, Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume II (2018), https://nca2018.globalchange.

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gov/ at 74, 95.10 Maxwell, Sean L. et al., Conservation implications of ecological responses to extreme weather and climate events, 25 Diversity and Distribution 613 (2019).11 Maxwell, Sean L. et al., Conservation implications of ecological responses to extreme weather and climate events, 25 Diversity and Distribution 613 (2019).12 Johnston, Matthew W. & Sam J. Purkis, Hurricanes accelerated the Florida-Bahamas lionfish invasion, 21 Global Change Biology 2249 (2015).13 Rupe, J. & L. Sconyers, Soybean Rust, The Plant Health Instructor (2008), https://www.apsnet.org/edcenter/disandpath/fungalbasidio/pdlessons/Pages/SoybeanRust.aspx.14 Simons, Theodore R. et al., Diablotin Pterodroma hasitata: a biography of the endangered black-capped petrel, 41 Marine Ornithology S3 (2013).15 Hass, T. et al., Climate change, heightened hurricane activity, and extinction risk for an endangered tropical seabirds, the black-capped petrel Pterodroma hasitata, 454 Marine Ecology Progress Series 251 (2012).16 Hass, T. et al., Climate change, heightened hurricane activity, and extinction risk for an endangered tropical seabirds, the black-capped petrel Pterodroma hasitata, 454 Marine Ecology Progress Series 251 (2012).17 Parker, I.D. et al., Florida Key Deer Hurricane Irma Report, Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, College Station, Texas (October 2017), https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/Key%20Deer%20Hurricane%20Irma%20Report%20October%202017(1).pdf.18 Oli, Madan K. et al., Viability analysis of endangered Gulf Coast beach mice (Peromyscus polionotus) populations, 97 Biological Conservation 107 (2001).19 Falcy, Matthew R. & Brent J. Danielson, Post-hurricane recovery and long-term viability of the Alabama beach mouse, 178 Biological Conservation 28 (2014).20 Oli, Madan K. et al., Viability analysis of endangered Gulf Coast beach mice (Peromyscus polionotus) populations, 97 Biological Conservation 107 (2001).21 Langtimm, Catherine A. & Cathy A. Beck, Lower survival probabilities for adult Florida manatees in years with intense coastal storms, 13 Ecological Applications 257 (2003).22 Walls, Susan C. et al., Seeking shelter from the storm: Conservation and management of imperiled species in a changing climate, 9 Ecology and Evolution 7122 (2019).23 Milton, Sarah L. et al., Effects of Hurricane Andrew on the sea turtle nesting beaches of South Florida, 54 Bulletin of Marine Science 974 (1994); Pike, David A. & John C. Stiner, Sea turtle species vary in their susceptibility to tropical cyclones, 153 Oecologia 471 (2007); van Houtan, Kyle S. & Oron L. Bass, Stormy oceans are associated with declines in sea turtle hatching, 17 Current Biology R 590 (2007); Lindborg, Rebekah et al., Factors influencing loggerhead (Caretta caretta) and green turtle (Chelonia mydas) reproductive success on a mixed use beach in Florida, 15 Chelonian Conservation and Biology 238 (2016).24 Jackson, Jeremy, Status and Trends of Caribbean Coral Reefs: 1970-2012, Executive Summary, Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network - IUCN (2014) at 14, Figure 3; Bruno, John F. & Elizabeth R. Selig, Regional decline of coral cover in the Indo-Pacific: Timing, extent, and subregional comparisons, 8 PLoS ONE e711 (2007) at 4.25 Carpenter, Kent E. et al., One-third of reef-building corals face elevated extinction risk from climate change and local impacts, 321 Science 560 (2008).26 Gardner, Toby A. et al., Hurricanes and Caribbean coral reefs: Impacts, recovery patterns, and role in long-term decline, 86 Ecology 174 (2005).27 Georgen, Elizabeth A. et al., Identifying causes of temporal changes in Acropora cervicornis populations and the potential for recovery, 6 Frontiers in Marine Science Article 36 (2019); Williams, D.E. & M.W. Miller, Attributing mortality among drivers of population decline in Acropora palmata in the Florida Keys (USA), 31 Coral Reefs 369 (2012).28 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Global warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty (2018) at SPM-15, https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/.29 Gedan, K.B. et al., The present and future role of coastal wetland vegetation in protecting shorelines: answering recent challenges to the paradigm, 106 Climatic Change 7 (2011); Ferrario, Filippo et al., The effectiveness of coral reefs for coastal hazard risk reduction and adaptation, 5 Nature Communications 3754 (2014); Narayan, Siddharth et al., The effectiveness, costs and coastal protection benefits of natural and nature-based defenses, 11 PLoS ONE e154735 (2016).

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