Climate change is threatening Florida's Key deer

As the United States continues to feel the effects of global warming and rising sea levels, there is renewed concern for the Key deer, a species native to the Florida Keys who could be pushed to cataclysmic levels by environmental change. The animal is the smallest deer species in North America — adults stand at just 30 inches tall.

Key deer have been dwindling in numbers throughout the 2010s. There has been a push by conservationists to promote the deer and grow their numbers; but with continued habitat loss from climate change — a factor that is unlikely to improve — some experts are wondering whether the so-called 'real-life Bambi' can be saved at all.

Why are Key deer so threatened?

It is mainly due to rising sea levels from climate change, which are "already altering the landscape of Big Pine Key and at least 20 smaller islands the deer call home," said The Associated Press. By 2100, sea levels in portions of the Florida Keys will rise from 1.5 feet to 7 feet, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This means that on the islands inhabited by the deer, sea level increases "will continue to shrink freshwater and food sources Key deer need to survive," said the AP.

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If scientists can't stop rising sea levels, freshwater will continue to turn to saltwater, and increasingly powerful storms will keep pushing this saltwater inland. Once it's there, it "can be tough for that water to drain with roads and other human development," said CBS News. With no "fresh water to drink or to grow food for the deer and other animals that call Big Pine Key home, it leaves them with a bleak future." The Key deer "won't have habitat and will become extinct," Chris Bergh, the program field director for the Nature Conservancy, said to CBS.

The possible extinction of the Key deer could also affect other species in the Florida Keys. The Key deer are an "umbrella species that is helping all the other animals that need this habitat as well," wildlife biologist Christina Wilson said to CBS. The animals "play a huge role in the Florida Keys, they are always eating something constantly." This makes them an important part of the Keys' overall ecosystem, which could be in flux if the deer disappear.

What is being done to help the species?

Legislation such as the Endangered Species Act has been passed to help save animals at risk — but it appears to be an uphill battle. If you "move the Key deer to a series of zoos like people have done with pandas and other endangered species," you can "keep them going, but at what cost and to what end"? Bergh said to NPR. "Is that really a future for the species?"

Even in the "best case scenario for sea-level rise, we're going to lose habitat for all of these species," Nikki Colangelo, the endangered species manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in South Florida, said to NPR. That is why conservationists "need to be considering some of these other strategies," such as relocating the deer to other habitats.

But that brings about another problem: "If you take them any other place with deer, they're going to interbreed and then you've lost the Key deer," former Texas A&M University professor Nova Silvy said to the AP.