When Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: Effects of smoke on the health, behavior, and detection of birds

Olivia Sanderfoot, PhD

Tue, Jan 17, 2023 7:00 PM

Birds are already stressed by habitat loss, climate change, invasive species, pollution, and overexploitation. Now, birds are coping with more frequent and intense wildfire activity, and even species that have evolved to live in ecosystems prone to fire may struggle to cope in the age of megafires. Birds are more sensitive to air pollution than any other vertebrate, and may be especially vulnerable to extreme smoke. Yet, we know virtually nothing about the impacts of smoke on the health and behavior of birds, and how this may impact our sightings of birds during the fire season.

We invite you to join Dr. Olivia Sanderfoot as she describes what we know so far about how smoke affects birds and what her research has revealed so far about the effects of smoke on detectability of avifauna.

Here is a video of the webinar: