Community Corner

This Winter Has Been Tough on Wildlife

Snow, Cold Temperatures Have Taken Their Toll

Signs of spring are beginning to bloom: a  hint of red can be seen in the swelling maple buds, downy woodpeckers can be heard marking territory with a drumroll-like peck, and Connecticut is gaining two to three minutes of daylight with each passing day.

The increasing daylight hours and warmer temperatures are melting snow and making it easier for deer and other wildlife to move around.

But the melt-off has also laid bare some of the harsh realities that deer and other animals have to deal with, as dead animals are seemingly everywhere along the sides of highways and busy roads.

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“We have such a high population of deer in the state, they move from one forage point to another, at some point they have to cross the road,” said Margarett Jones, executive director of the Denison-Pequotsepos Nature Center in Mystic.

 The Department of Transportation reports indicate  a low incidence of collisions with animals. There were 1,801 reported in 2007 and there were 1,893 reported in 2008, the most recent statistics available from the department. The animal is most likely a deer, according to Kevin Nursick, a transportation department spokesman, but the reports aren’t that specific. The department  anticipates that 15,000 deer-vehicle accidents go unreported annually.

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“I don’t think it will accurately reflect deer-strikes,” Nursick said. “I’ve hit three deer and have not reported them to the police, it did almost no damage to my truck.”   

 "White-tail deer are native to Connecticut,” and according to Andrew LaBonte, a wildlife biologist for Department of Environmental Protection, the most recent estimate – a 2007 count that put the in-state number of deer at 62,000, but that estimate is low.

 “We know we don’t count every deer: 124,000 is probably more realistic,” said LaBonte.

The deer population has stabilized since the 2007 survey, according to LaBonte, who has been getting calls from Connecticut residents about feeding deer who venture into backyards. People have been concerned that deer will not be able to forage through the high snow and icy top crust and that hunger is a deer’s motivation to approach populated areas. LaBonte said that’s not the case.

 “With  such a deep mat of snow in that short time period they'll yard up in larger groups in forested areas with less snow,” he said. “Now that it's warming up, the deer are starting to move around much more.”

The fall’s acorn crop was very good, according to LaBonte, and deer were able to fatten up enough then to carry them through the winter. He said typically deer eat minimally for some weeks during the winter and wouldn’t begin dying of starvation until the end of March or early April.

“If it were a low acorn year they’d be in much worse shape and the complaints would be three times higher,” he said.

 The snow and long bouts of freezing temperatures have made deer work a little harder to find food but it is wading birds and birds of prey that are suffering most, according to Jones.

 “Birds of prey have resorted to eating roadkill,” she said of the crows, hawks and eagles that would normally hunt small mammals. Rodents that have burrowed under the icy top-layer this winter enjoy less fear of discovery.

 But, wading birds like the great blue heron and the king fisher have nothing to resort to, she said. The Denison-Pequotsepos Nature Center has received five great blue herons this winter “on death’s door,” according to Jones, which is four and five more birds than the past two winters. All but one have perished.

 The birds eat fish but the long-lasting snow and bitter cold has frozen the shallow bays and tidal rivers where the birds would wade in for food.

The warming temperatures are a help for the birds now, but she said, “it's not over yet, if we get another cold snap, some are doomed.”


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