By Kellah Lavoie

Wild weather wicked on wildlife

Feb 23, 2011 | 8:15 AM

The recent temperatures are taking a toll on wildlife.

Adam Schmidt, a wildlife biologist with the Ministry of Environment, said the impacts are twofold — physiological and environmental.

It is difficult to describe the physiological impacts, explaining they would be similar to the way people adjust to temperatures going up and down, he said.

The environmental impacts have to do with temperature swings and crust forming on the snow.

“Species like upland birds, like sharp-tail grouse, rough grouse, they actually bury into the snow overnight to get away from the wind and the cold so they’re insulated,” he said.

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“If the temperature does go down and a crust forms on the snow they can’t do that so they’re burning up a lot more energy if they’re not in a snow-burrow.”

For the grouse, which seem to be hit the hardest, their ability to get through the snow, is a matter of survival.

The changing weather also affects birds that are ground-feeders, because they cannot dig through the snow to get a food.

He explained mammals like deer and elk cannot travel as easily when there is a crust on the snow and do not have an easy access to food.

“The temperature swings, the impact is related to snow depth too. In a lot of the cases in the province this year we’ve had more snow than normal — it’s a combination of deep snow, temperature swings and crust,” he said.

The impacts of changing weather also to stretch to the animals, which sleep the winter away.

While hibernating bears aren’t likely to wake up, racoons and skunks will sometimes come out of the hibernation-like states and wander around.

“We really don’t know whether that causes them to burn off extra calories, because maybe they may not find much to eat. Even though they wake up and are looking for things and are thinking it’s spring, there may not be a lot of food out there for them so it may cause problems with the length of the winter. They may be out burning up calories when they’d be better off sleeping somewhere,” he said, adding when it cools back off they will eventually go back to their den.

Every winter there are times when it gets warmer and cooler, but it does not seem to swing as much as it has this year, Schmidt said. He added temperatures of plus one or two usually only stick around for about an hour and don’t last long enough to form the crust on the snow.

“The number of time that happens in the winter and they actual how high the temperature it gets that’s the big thing. If it gets above zero for long enough that the snow starts to melt and that’s when the crust forms,” he said.

klavoie@panow.com