Hunting and fishing in a changing climate

Roughly 14 million Americans hunt and an additional 33 million fish every year. For many people, these activities are a lifelong passion that allows them to connect with the outdoors and to continue family traditions. Modern wildlife management, funded in part by sportsmen and women through excise taxes and stamp fees, has maintained healthy populations of many game species for decades.

Unfortunately, climate change is threatening long-standing hunting and fishing traditions, and our outdoor experience. Here in Pennsylvania, many species are on the front lines of the climate change battle. The brook trout, an economically and culturally important species, requires clean, cold, waters to thrive, but their populations will decline with a warming climate. The black duck, whose populations are already low, will lose important nesting sites due to sea level rise; and seagrass lost due to sea level rise will be devastating for species like the American Wigeon, northern pintail, canvasback, and the black duck that rely on this aquatic vegetation for food.

In the National Wildlife Federation’s recent report:-Ticked Off: America’s Outdoor Experience and Climate Change, the threat to moose is clear. Climate change is helping winter tick populations explode thanks to less snow, late onset winters, and earlier springs. Winter ticks have a completely different lifecycle than deer ticks and parasitize their host during the winter. In Minnesota, some moose have been found with 50,000-70,000 winter ticks -- 10-20 times more than normal. This leads to severe anemia, loss of hair due to scratching and rubbing that leaves the moose vulnerable to the cold and, ultimately, death. This increased mortality has led to fewer hunting permits being issued in Maine and New Hampshire, and in Minnesota, the season is closed entirely due to rapid population declines.

These impacts to wildlife are terrible, but there are actions we can take to mitigate the harms of climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took a historic step with its Clean Power Plan, which limits carbon pollution from the nation’s largest source: power plants. Supporting this plan and urging states to implement the plan can help protect wildlife for the next generation.

Jennifer Quinn is central Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Harrisburg. She tweets @QuinnJen1.