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Sweltering baby hawks threw themselves out of nests, and mussels baked to death in their shells as record heat brought crisis to the Pacific Northwest.

As the Pacific Northwest baked in 115 degree heat last month, fuzzy baby hawks sat sweltering in their nests, 50 feet off the ground. Unable to fly, the young raptors dealt with the heat in the only way they could: One by one, they threw themselves out. 

Nearly 50 baby Cooper’s and Swainson’s hawks were rescued from the ground beneath towering pines in Washington and Oregon and brought to Blue Mountain Wildlife, a rehabilitation organization in Pendleton, Oregon, which specializes in treating birds of prey. More still were brought to Portland Audubon and other rehabilitation facilities throughout the Pacific Northwest.

The historic heat wave coincided with nesting season, says Lynn Tompkins, director of Blue Mountain Wildlife. If the young birds had been able to fly, they could have sought reprieve in a cooler spot. If they’d had feathers, they’d have been able to regulate their body temperatures. “But these guys were just downy babies,” she says, “and there was nothing to do but bail out.” 

The hawk nosedives are one dramatic example of the many ways wild animals have been affected by extreme heat in the West. Marine life, including mussels and sea stars, have died en masse from exposure to unusually hot air. One estimate puts the death toll at more than a billion. Other effects aren’t yet clear. In some cases, human development prevents animals from being able to flee to cooler areas. Other animals are likely to take new risks by venturing places they normally wouldn’t, in search of shade or water. 

As extreme heat events become more frequent and median temperatures rise, experts are concerned about animals’ ability to survive and adapt.

To understand how wildlife is affected by extreme heat, says Mažeika Sullivan, a professor at Ohio State University's School of Environment and Natural Resources, it’s important to keep in mind that heat waves are just one of the challenges wildlife face. 

“It’s about multiple stressors,” he says. Extreme heat events are compounded by drought, rising temperatures, bigger and more intense wildfires, and increasingly fragmented habitats. (This is how animals cope with wildfires.)

Animals “only have so many coping mechanisms,” he says. “And asking them to cope with so many environmental stressors that are happening over long time scales and then heat waves for multiple days—it’s impossible to talk about one without talking about it in context.”