wildlife suffers from lack of water, warns the League for the Protection of Birds

Waterless rivers, suffering agricultural soils… Drought has multiple deleterious consequences. It also strongly disturbs wild animals, which in addition to thirst, also see their reproduction and their migrations upset by the lack of water, alert Monday, April 24 the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO).

In the ten natural areas managed by the association in Charente-Maritime and Vendée, where during the spring and summer of 2022 rainfall was 30% less abundant than the ten-year average, we “notes a real loss of biodiversity: decline in reproductive success, mortality, decline in site visits”underlines the association.

The survival of certain “at risk” species

In some areas, the consequences have been particularly devastating. Thus, on the Saint-Denis-du-Payré and Vacherie marsh nature reserves, the numbers of migrating waterbirds were 19 times lower in August 2022 compared to the average for the previous five years. At the start of wintering, ducks were always six times less numerous than in other years.

These findings prove that “Climate crises and the collapse of biodiversity are intimately linked and must be tackled together”, notes the LPO. Combined with other pressures already weighing on wildlife (intensive agriculture, hunting, pollution, proliferation of invasive species), “drought events lasting several years in a row could directly endanger the survival of certain species”adds the association, while the water tables were still at their lowest at the end of March, raising fears of a new dry summer in France.