The human death toll caused by hurricane Dean was thankfully modest when it hit Mexico on 21 August. That’s because it bypassed most populated areas. But as a consequence, wildlife was left to take the brunt of it and early field reports suggest some of the damage was severe.
Dean’s impact as it passed though Mexico’s southern state of was kept to a minimum because evacuation plans worked well, and the category 5 storm struck a heavily forested area where relatively few people live. However, it severely stressed reefs and mangroves in the region, and has also damaged the forest, according to Laura Carrillo, an oceanographer at the Chetumal campus of the School of the Southern Border, which lay directly in the path of the storm. “We are running out of trees… and a large number of birds were found dead immediately after the hurricane,” she told 91av.
Carillo’s group is starting to assess the full extent of the ecological impact. She says they have already noticed that few of the normally abundant insects remain, fruits are gone, and little protection remains for many species of small animals.
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