The bobolink is Ohio's version of the "Canary in the coal mine," and it's message isn't optimistic about the future success of the species.

Nor are the futures bright for other iconic Ohio species, such as the wood thrush, the rose-breasted grosbeak and the sandhill crane, according to the findings of the National Audubon Society's Birds and Climate Report.

One of the authors of that groundbreaking report, Gary Langham, the Audubon Society's chief scientist, delivered a troubling overview of its findings Wednesday to a lunchtime forum of the City Club of Cleveland.

A one-degree increase in the average temperature over the last century has had a "huge and devastating effect" on the world's weather and its wildlife, Langham said. Last year was the warmest year on record, he added.

The Audubon study found that 314 species, or more than half of all 588 North American bird species, are endangered or threatened by climate change if global warming continues at its current pace. Of the 350 species found in Ohio, 55 percent are endangered or threatened, Langham said.

Chief Scientist Gary Langham told a City Club of Cleveland audience that it's "our moral responsibility to do all we can" to work toward curbing climate change for the benefit of future generations.

"Climate change is the biggest threat of all to the birds," Langham said. "As the birds go, so will everything else."

Bobolinks are colorful blackbirds with bubbly songs that breed on expansive grasslands such as at the old Coliseum site in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, at the Bath Nature Preserve, and at the Springfield Bog Metro Park in Summit County. As grasslands have shrunk over the past century, the bobolink population has plummeted.

The Audubon report's range maps show the bobolink's nesting area shifting northward over the next 65 years. By 2080, as much as 98 percent of bobolinks will have left Ohio altogether, and the majority of their nesting grounds will lie in Canada.

"How is this grassland species going to survive in the boreal forest?" Langham asked.

Other Ohio birds won't fare much better, according to the report. Rose-breasted grosbeaks are predicted to lose 96 percent of their population in the state. Wood thrush could lose up to 84 percent of their numbers, he said.

Some of the threatened bird species may adapt to changes in weather and habitat, Langham said. But it's the Audubon Society's moral responsibility to continue to work toward a solution to save every threatened species, he said.

Langham said the Audubon Society isn't wringing its hands over the climate change deniers in Congress. "We don't need to burden ourselves with the hardcore minority," he said.

Rather, he cited surveys that indicated 40 percent of Audubon members identify themselves as Republican or Independent, and 83 percent of those members said they were alarmed or concerned about climate change.

"Birds are excellent messengers," Langham said. "They're apolitical and resonate with people like polar bears."

He said a more effective route toward getting action on climate change would be to communicate with your network of friends and neighbors, and to express your opinions with your government representatives.

"It's not all gloom and doom," Langham said. "There's actually a lot we can do to save these threatened species."