Midwest flamingos and ‘hurricane toads’: wildlife’s strange hurricane stories

Hurricanes can be a devastating force – leveling trees, erasing beaches and damaging homes. But what do they do to wildlife? 

The answer ranges from the good to the bad to the ugly. Hurricanes sometimes help native species, but other times, they introduce and spread invasive species. Sometimes, they cause animals to evolve to survive these storms more easily, and sometimes they lead to mass migration or extinction.  

A University of Florida study published in Biological Reviews reviewed over 300 scholarly articles and looked for trends that showed how animals reacted and adapted to tropical cyclones – which includes hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, typhoons in the northwestern Pacific Ocean and cyclones in the south Pacific and Indian oceans. Such research can help inform environmental and wildlife management decisions as tropical cyclones become more frequent and stronger in a warming world. 

Overall, researchers found a few themes: Animals around the globe moved differently in response to hurricanes due to instinct or by impact from the storm itself, they hid in or fled to unexpected places, some were killed by the hundreds and some thrived and multiplied – despite all odds, said Hance Ellington, senior author and assistant professor in the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation. Tropical cyclones also spread invasive species into new regions, adding a new survival challenge for native species. 

“The big picture is that tropical cyclones impact wildlife, directly or indirectly in a variety of ways, whether via survival, impacting reproduction or by other means,” he said. “While it’s not the norm, a really fascinating realization from this review is that some wildlife can actually benefit from hurricanes.” 

Heavy rainfall associated with hurricanes can fill up ponds, which are perfect for gopher frogs to lay eggs. Similarly, the Eastern spadefoot has been nicknamed the “hurricane toad” because tropical cyclones and tropical storms can “trigger explosive breeding events,” the study stated. 

Survival rates of blue-footed boobies tend to be higher after a storm, possibly because of an increase in fish populations, which the birds feed on. 

Some effects are indirectly helpful, like shedding of high canopy vegetation from strong hurricane-force winds. Key deer in the Florida Keys had more fawns after Hurricane Georges in 1998, presumably because the lush, new growth of vegetation provided a new food source.  

Some species have teetered on the edge of extinction due to tropical cyclones, such as the Cozumel thrasher and the Miami blue butterfly. The Miami blue butterfly is making a comeback, however, via a breeding program at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History. 

Indirect forces can also cause animals to die, such as saltwater flooding into American alligators’ freshwater habitats or queen conches being buried by sand or rubble. 

Storms can also spread invasive species — for example, Hurricane Andrew in 1992 reportedly released pythons from a South Florida facility, though this likely worsened rather than caused the now-established Burmese python invasion. Another case is the spread of the non-native lionfish from Florida – where it was already causing problems – to the Bahamas and the introduction of non-native green iguanas onto tropical islands by hitching rides on floating rafts of storm debris. 

When looking at how animals avoided hurricanes, they found that sharks may have an innate sense of an oncoming tropical cyclone by detecting a drop in barometric pressure, which was shown when juvenile blacktip sharks evacuated a nursery bay for deeper waters, even though they’d never had experience with a storm before. 

Some animals, like birds, aren’t lucky enough to avoid a hurricane but instead get caught in its path mid-flight. In 2023, Hurricane Idalia blew flocks of American flamingos from the Yucatan in Mexico across at least 13 U.S. states, as far north as Wisconsin and Ohio. 

Some animals flee before a storm hits, usually to higher elevations. African elephants move from floodplains to higher, woodland habitats. White-tailed deer left their typical grazing lands and sought shelter at much higher ground in areas they otherwise never visited. 

Some animals hide – sometimes in unlikely safe havens. Atlantic yellow-nosed albatrosses and wandering albatrosses, for example, have been recorded flying into the eye of a tropical cyclone, where the wind speed is lower. 

Some animals stay in place and instead have adapted over generations to better survive tropical cyclones. 

Some anoles, a type of lizard, that live on Caribbean islands have formed larger toe pads to be able to grip leaves better during storms. 

Despite whether the impact is good, bad or ugly, understanding the impact of tropical cyclones to wildlife will help with wildlife conservation and management decisions, as well as understanding quickly changing dynamics in the natural world as storms become more frequent and stronger, Ellington said. 

The study was funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA – NIFA) and supported by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Wetland and Aquatic Research Centre, the USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative and Florida's Nongame Wildlife Trust Fund.