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Stronger and more frequent hurricanes may pose a new threat to the sooty tern, an iconic species of migratory seabird found throughout the Caribbean and Mid-Atlantic, a new study reveals. The study is the first to map the birds’ annual migratory path and demonstrate how its timing and trajectory place them in the direct path of hurricanes moving into the Caribbean after forming over the Atlantic.
A new map produced by the research shows that sooty terns leave their breeding colony at Dry Tortugas National Park in the Florida Keys each June as hurricane season starts. They migrate southward and eastward across the Caribbean through summer and early fall, before skirting the northern coast of South America and arriving at their winter habitat off the Atlantic coast of Brazil in November.Image credit: Ryan Huang, Duke University
