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Vagrancy could help species chart an escape route from human-induced climate change and widespread habitat destruction, according to scientists. Rather than stay in place and face potential extinction, a few pioneers can discover new habitats as their old homes become uninhabitable.
For example, the critically endangered Chinese crested tern, presumed extinct After last seen in 1937. Biologists in 2000 and a few years later rediscovered Species in areas where it has not previously spawned in China and Taiwan. scientists in 2016 to create Two pairs of Chinese crested terns brood on a desert island in South Korea. Its small surviving population – only about 50 birds – still threatening by people hunting eggs and typhoons destroying nests. But as a bodyguard noted In 2017, the Korean nesting site “means that the future of this species looks more promising now.”
With the growing interest in climate change, scientists have highlighted the challenge of unraveling the role of vagrancy in a species’ adaptation. “You can’t predict when and where a vagrant will appear,” said Lucinda Zawadzki, a zoologist at the University of Oxford. “They are rare in nature.”
For example, for his own research, Dr. Zawadzki installed 19 fog nets on Bon Portage Island in Nova Scotia to capture and dissect as many vagrants as possible. It netted 29 in two years—an impressive yield for the subject at hand. But he acknowledged that there is a small sample size for a scientific study.
In the absence of a solid understanding of their pioneer journeys, people have typically written off bird vagrants as disoriented or windy.
“There is a historical narrative about vagrants that they must be lost. They have to be disgusting. There’s something wrong with them,” said Dr. Zawadzki.
But faced with climate change, he said, the opposite may be true: The ability to explore—or, in other words, the opportunity to “get lost”—becomes a huge advantage.
“They’re more likely to survive,” he said.
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