One citizen science initiative is attempting to see through the haze.
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News of the world environment
NEWSLETTER | AUGUST 15, 2025
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Navigating Smoky Skies
AS CLIMATE CHANGE lengthens and intensifies the wildfire season along the West Coast of the United States, questions of survival emerge for everyone — including the birds flying through the smoke. Moses Aubrey, a researcher with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, watched this play out in real time during the devastating January 2025 fires in the LA neighborhoods of Altadena and Pacific Palisades. While ash fell from the sky, Aubrey noticed how birds vanished from their usual haunts, except for one resilient species that stuck around despite the apocalyptic conditions.
“The thing that was most shocking is that, where I was living in LA, it was raining ash and most of the birds that I would see normally weren’t around,” remembers Aubrey. “But the black phoebe was just doing its thing. I thought that was pretty crazy.”
Observations like Aubrey’s raise pressing questions about avian survival strategies, yet there is a critical gap in our understanding of how birds respond to increasingly destructive fires. Research from UC Irvine confirmed that California’s wildfire season has lengthened, and the yearly peak in fires has moved from August to July. The recent catastrophic fires in Los Angeles, which occurred well outside the traditional fire season, further signal a shift in wildfire patterns that disrupts both human communities and wildlife populations.
Journalist Rebecca Lerner reports on a crowdsourced research project on wildfire and birds that is recruiting citizen scientists across California, Oregon, and Washington to conduct weekly bird surveys during peak wildfire season.
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Photo of black phoebe by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren / Animalia ([link removed])
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Rooting for Pipers ([link removed])
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Temporal Havens for Wildlife ([link removed])
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