Tawny Owl Adaptation To The Warming Environment

                             How Tawny Owls Adapt To Their Warming Environment
     
 Tawny Owls are a very natural owl in Europe. They usually come in two colors, either a brownish or grayish. Their wingspan is 81-105cm (32-41in). They weigh 385-800grams. Tawny owl females are 5% larger and 25% more heavy than the males. Tawny owls fly higher than Eurasian Owls. The grey feathered tawny owls are seen more in cooler areas since their colors provide them camouflage with the snow. The brown tawny owls prefer living in the freezing and white environment.Tawny owls like to eat, woodland rodents, small mammals such as young rabbits, voles, rats and hares. They also like to eat, beetles, birds, songbirds, house sparrows, ermine and earthworms.

Tornio

Tawny owls are changing from white to brown, so they can survive in their warming climate. Scientists have said, as winters become milder, grey feather tawny owls are likely to disappear. In years when winter weather was bad, there was an increased mortality rate in the brown tawny owl community. This could be because brown tawny owls were more seen by predators when there was solid snow cover. Tawny owls will be impacted by hard winters and food scarcity due to climate change. Voles are the most important prey for tawny owls,they count for 62% of their food. The tawny owl community will die off unless a normal vole cycle starts up again. Tawny owls cannot breed offspring that will survive unless they have enough voles to feed for their young. This shows that we need to stop climate change now so that tawny owl populations can survive through the harsh winters and have offspring that will live for a long time.

Works Cited

Brennand, Emma. "Earth News-Owls Change Colour as Climate Warms." BBC-Earth News, 22 Feb. 2011, news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9401000/9401733.stm. Accessed 10 Dec. 2019.

Marshall, Tom. "Owls In Trouble In A Changing World." Phys org, 17 Mar. 2014, phys.org/news/2014-03-owls-world.html. Accessed 12 Dec. 2019.

Ro, Christine. "The Animals That Will Survive Climate Change." BBC Future, 4 Aug. 2019, www.bbc.com/future/article/20190730-the-animals-that-will-survive-climate-change. Accessed 9 Dec. 2019.

Tawny Owl Facts-Tawny Owl Habitat-Tawny Owl Diet." Birds Flight, birdsflight.com/tawny-owl facts-tawny-owl-habitat-tawny-owl-diet/. Accessed 12 Dec. 2019.

Tornio, Stacy. Tawny Owls. 23 Mar. 2016, www.mnn.com/earth-matters/animals/photos/8-animals-are-evolving-quickly/tawny-owls#top-desktop. Accessed 11 Dec. 2019.

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Environment-Here And There

Here (New Hampshire)-Lyme Disease

As I was reading Lyme Disease Heat Stress, Extreme Weather Expected To Increase, I became more interested in learning about Lyme disease. I think one of the reasons I became interested in Lyme disease is because my dad is battling it. Lyme disease is a tick-borne illness that you get when an infected tick bites you. When you get Lyme disease you might get a bulls-eye rash around the bite that the tick left. Some of the early symptoms are headaches, fevers, joint aches, and brain fog. In 2017, the 956 confirmed cases in New Hampshire, represented one of the highest rates per population density in the United States.

The rising temperatures are causing ticks to live for longer periods which can expose animals and humans to a longer yearly tick season. The rising temperatures are not just affecting humans, it's also affecting deer and dogs, and killing moose populations in New Hampshire. The moose in New Hampshire is experiencing a high volume of blood loss, they try to get the ticks off of themselves instead of eating, they lose their fat so they get too thin and they scrape off a lot of their fur trying to remove the ticks.

The second stage of Lyme disease is what my dad has. We call this neurological Lyme Disease. Neurological Lyme Disease is the second stage of Lyme that either was not detected at the beginning or was not treated fully. People who have Neurological Lyme Disease can have nerve damage in their arms and legs, irritability, poor memory, concentration, and poor sleep. Early testing for Lyme is not always accurate. It shows as negative when later it shows up as positive.

Some ways that you can prevent yourself from getting Lyme disease is, you should check yourself for ticks after spending time in the woods, take off a tick as quickly as possible with tweezers so it does not bite you, use insect repellent and tick proof your yard. There are vaccines available for dogs currently but none for humans. Some labs are testing vaccines to possibly work with humans in the future. So we need to stop climate change before we all get Lyme disease.

There (Italy)-Lyme Disease

In the Northwestern region of Italy, scientists have studied the bacteria in ticks which are called Borrelia. This is a different type of bacteria that causes Lyme in Italy compared to North America.   In Italy, people who have Lyme disease get central nervous system issues such as confusion.People who live in the Italian Peninsula are in danger of being attacked by many tick species. There are 40 species of ticks in Italy. Hard ticks are the most common ticks. They cause tick-borne diseases that can spread to wild animals and domestic animals in Italy. The ticks in Italy are found to have bacteria in their saliva instead of in their gut.Lyme disease was identified for 3 workers who were at danger for a tick bite. In Italy, 24 cases of Lyme disease were recorded in the last year. Eighteen percent of ticks looked at from three areas showed positive for Lyme disease borreliae.

                                                               (Krasemann)       
In Italy, the temperature has risen due to climate change so the ticks go into different regions and infect more people with Lyme disease. The climate change is not just affecting the tick population, it's also making glaciers in the Italian Alps melt, severe flooding and violent storms have been occurring more often. Scientists say that the Italian Alps could lose up to 80% of their glacier cover by the end of the century, when summer temperatures go up by 3 degrees Celsius. If temperatures rise up by 5 degrees Celsius, the Alps will be mostly ice-free by 2100. This shows that Italy and the global community needs to work to stop climate change so that they can have a healthier country, by not having warm temperatures this causes the ticks to live for longer.




Works Cited:

Buchner, Jill. Lyme Disease and Beyond:5 Ways Ticks Make You Sick. Reader's Digest Canada, www.readersdigest.ca/health/conditions/tick-borne-diseases/. Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

Caruso, Catherine. "Tests For Lyme Disease Miss Many Early Cases-But A New Approach Could Help." STAT, 28 June 2017, www.statnews.com/2017/06/28/early-lyme-tests/.

Dubail, Jean. "Here Are the Biting Ticks in NH, Number of Lyme Cases." Patch, 8 Apr. 2019, patch.com/new-hampshire/concord-nh/here-are-biting-ticks-nh-number-lyme-cases. Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

Kanter, Rob. "Moose, Winter Ticks, and Climate Change In New Hampshire." Environmental Almanac, 27 July 2017, will.illinois.edu/environmentalalmanac/program/moose-winter-ticks-and-climate-change-in-new-hampshire. Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

"Lyme Borreliosis,Po River Valley,Italy." Centers For Disease Control And Prevention, Aug. 2010, wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/16/8/10-0152_article. Accessed 5 Dec. 2019.

"Lyme Disease-Symptoms And Causes." Mayo Clinic, www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lyme-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20374651. Accessed Matthews, L. "Lyme Disease In Italy." LymeDiseaseGuide.org, 20 Oct. 2014, lymediseaseguide.net/lyme-disease-in-italy. Accessed 5 Dec. 2019.