Hurricane Dorian is thought to have been one of the worst natural disasters for the Bahamas, leaving at least 70,000 people homeless and causing more than $5bn (£3.7bn) in damage in 2019. But it wasn’t just people who suffered. For one forest dwelling songbird – the Bahama nuthatch – this hurricane spelled the end.
Now a new study reveals that a significant number of species that are endemic to a single island, like the Bahama nuthatch, are at increasing risk of extinction from severe tropical cyclones, with an estimated 60 species potentially one cyclone away from being wiped out.
Researchers mapped all the severe cyclones (those with wind speeds above 200km/h) that have occurred since 1972 and worked out how many of these had hit biodiversity hotspots. To their surprise, they found three-quarters of severe cyclones struck biodiversity hotspots made up entirely of islands and 95% of these repeatedly pummelled the same five island regions: Japan, Polynesia-Micronesia, the Philippines, Madagascar and the Indian Ocean islands, and the Caribbean islands.
Consulting the red list of most threatened species they report in the journal Biological Conservation there are 60 storm-threatened species that are present in a single location on a single island. Upping the conservation effort for these species is essential if we do not want the next severe tropical cyclone to be their last.
