Heralded as violent, the El Niño phenomenon will particularly hit the Ecuadorian Galapagos archipelago, one of the places most affected by the climate crisis, and in particular its endangered species, including its extraordinary colonies of iguanas.
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Numerous Amblyrhynchus cristatus jostle on the white sands of Santa Cruz Island, 1,000 km off the coast of Ecuador.
This unique marine iguana species, which can live up to 60 years, is one of the species most at risk from El Niño-related rises in sea surface temperatures, which result in extreme climatic events, weaker winds or torrential rains.
“We are in a place where many ocean currents converge, which means that events like El Niño, a product of climate change, will have severe impacts on many species and certain ecosystems in the archipelago,” explains Washington Tapia, director of the Galapagos Conservation Society .
Marine iguanas feed primarily on seaweed at the edge of beaches “and cannot swim long distances in the open ocean to forage,” which is rare during El Niño season, he adds.
Photo: AFP
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced the onset of El Niño on June 8, warning that it “could set new temperature records” in some regions.
And although it’s a natural climate phenomenon, occurring on average every two to seven years and typically lasting between nine and 12 months, the incident is taking place “in the context of a climate altered by human activities,” the World Meteorological Organization recalls (WMO). ).
weight and height loss
If El Niño varies in intensity and frequency, the phenomenon has “permanently plagued the Galapagos Islands,” Galapagos National Park director Danny Rueda explained in an interview with AFP.
In 1982, El Niño sounded the first warning before bleaching entire coral colonies in 1997 and wreaking havoc on the islands’ wildlife that inspired the Darwinian theory of evolution.
“According to forecasts, this would be the third El Niño of this magnitude,” fears the park director. At this time of year, he would normally see an “influx of cold water, but we still have a very warm flow of water.”
Galapagos species are able to survive climatic anomalies due to their hardiness. However, if these fluctuations occur too frequently and with too great an intensity, there is a risk of upsetting the balance between birth rates and mortality.
In the Galapagos, El Niño has historically reduced penguin and cormorant populations by 30%, which has also impacted sea lions and marine iguanas, the archipelago’s four most endangered species.
Penguins and cormorants, estimated to number between 1,000 and 1,500, could be more affected than marine iguanas, which are the only ones in the world with this ability to dive.
This colony of 450,000 reptiles represents a “population that can recover very quickly,” Mr. Rueda notes, but that doesn’t stop them from losing weight and shrinking up to two inches, as documented by the passport.
Heavy rains could affect sea turtle and tortoise populations as their nests would be flooded and their eggs lost.
“Because this is a natural phenomenon, we have no preventive measures”, the only thing we can do is “to have the post-breeding population numbers to know how much the phenomenon is affecting these vulnerable populations.” the Galapagos Islands,” explains Danny Rueda.
Monitoring the animal population will therefore allow the intensity and impact of this new El Niño to be determined retrospectively.
Should there be a lower “reproductive success” of these endangered species, explains the director, “we will speak of an El Niño phenomenon (…) in terms of nature conservation”.