Strike Out!

Mass mortality events or MMEs (where substantial numbers of a species die in a very short time), certainly may be factors threatening the extinctions of animals, ranging from fruit bats in Australia; Saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan; corals in many parts of the world to sardines in our seas (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/25/mass-mortality-events-animal-conservation-climate-change). MMEs appear to be currently more common (or perhaps better documented?) and there have been tentative attempts to link their occurrence to climate change. Whilst it is somewhat 'dodgy' to attempt to associate an individual meteorological event (a cold snap, a heat-wave or a hurricane) to a MME, there is little doubt that climate change will pose challenges for some species and, failure to cope,  may underpin some of the simultaneous fatal consequences.