A new study from CABI Reviews suggests that the impact of climate change on animals will be multifaceted with “cascading effects” across five welfare domains, including environment, physical, nutrition, behavior, and mental health.
This study demonstrates how researchers need to carefully consider current and future priority domains. This is to maintain the welfare and longevity of animals for food, as pets, and for conservation in nature reserves and zoos.
Animals that are at risk from climate change such as koalas, bats, zebrafish, chickens, African elephants, rocky river frogs, and dairy cows.
Dr. Edward Narayan, lead author and Senior Lecturer in Animal Science at the School of Agriculture and Food Science at The University of Queensland, Australia, said that in the meantime, researchers have extensively studied the effects of climate change on animals. A direct correlation between climate change and the welfare of animals, particularly wild animals, is still relatively scarce in existing studies.
Read also : Climate Change and Its Relation to Humans and Natural Climate
This research highlights how heat stress in dairy cows leads to a 35% reduction in milk production. Heat stress significantly affects lactation performance, immune function, and calf health. Not only that, broiler chickens that were kept in hot conditions for four days showed higher cases of necrosis and reduced their quality of life and meat.
Climate change has been recognized as a major factor driving population decline in many marsupial species, including the koala. Koalas must expend more energy to maintain body temperature, using food sources that are of reduced quality due to current projected climate change.
Dr. Narayan added that climate change is pushing more wild populations to ecological limits. There will be potential welfare consequences and considerations to be explored. For example, when a vulnerable species needs to be moved to a new environment such as captivity, if their food and habitat become resource constraining.
Source: Phys.org
