Publication: Ottawa Citizen

UCLA Expert: Olivia Sanderfoot: Postdoctoral Fellow, UCLA La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

Synopsis: While some birds alter their breeding and migration patterns due to wildfire smoke clogging the sky, other birds thrive on the aftermath of fires.

UCLA News: “When I see pictures like the ones out of New York, I think ‘This is going to make a lot of people sick. And it’s going to make a lot of animals sick,” said Sanderfoot, who studies the effect of wildfire smoke on birds and other animals. “Pet birds, wild birds and poultry are all highly vulnerable to air pollution and that’s because they all share a common respiratory system,” she said in an interview after air quality began to plummet in Ottawa and on the east coast of the United States in early June due to wildfires burning in Quebec and Ontario.

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