Indiana Dunes threatened by climate change, report warns [View All]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/green/chi-indiana-dunes-south-18-nov18,0,4642992.story


Experts say some noticeable changes already affecting plants, wildlife


About a decade ago, the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore had one of the country's largest populations of the Karner blue butterfly. The nickel-size insects feasted on the national park's bountiful wild lupine and relied on northwest Indiana's heavy snowfall to protect its eggs in winter for spring hatching.

But the butterfly's population has declined in recent years, and some researchers are pointing to, among other things, warmer winters, less snowfall and other weather-related changes threatening the wild lupine.

The Karner blue's predicament is one of many listed in a report released last month naming the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore among 25 national parks in the United States endangered by climate change.

"This just re-enforces just how rare, unique and vulnerable it is," said Tom Anderson, executive director of Save the Dunes, based on the eastern edge of the national park in Michigan City, Ind.

The report, "National Parks in Peril," was compiled by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council and lists a variety of factors threatening the National Lakeshore, including warmer winters; predicted drops in Lake Michigan's water level; precipitation downfalls, which lead to flooding; invasive species; air pollution; and declines in fish populations from warmer-than-normal summer temperatures.

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"What's going to happen to our national parks can bring climate change home to people in a way that melting ice caps do not," said Stephen Saunders, president of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and former deputy assistant secretary for the Interior over the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "It's not just the largest, most well-known, iconic parks. Nearly all of them are affected and vulnerable."
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