It’s not “normal”.
Winters in Canada are supposed to be long and consistently cold. In recent years, that’s not been happening.
Yesterday a warm front a few degrees above zero moved through much of eastern Canada bringing with it extensive rain showers.
With yet another warm spell happening in this season, many of the species of frogs, snakes, turtles and other normally hibernating creatures have been awakening from winter sleep due to the several warm spells occurring in winters in southern Canada.
The trouble is once they awaken and move out from their winter shelters, they are at extreme risk when the cold weather returns.
Scott Gillingwater, is a species-at-risk biologist with the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority in Ontario. Quoted by the CBC, he says he’s heard reports of sightings of green frog, leopard frog, spring peeper frog, the midland painted turtle and the spotted turtle during warm snaps in November, December, and last weekend.
Other animals as well are being adversely affected by increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. Earlier this month, staff at the Wings Wildlife Rescue Centre in Amherstburg Ontario reported possums getting frostbite, young hawks and owls looking a bit starved and squirrels being born into a cold snap.
The unusual warm spells followed by freezes also puts crops at serious risk, In a protracted warm spell, many fruit trees start to bud, but the subsequent frost kills the buds seriously reducing later crops. The same phenomenon is also now occurring in the spring when warmer weather is expected, but a sudden unexpected cold snap freezes buds. In recent years these weather anomolies have cost Ontario’s fruit growers massive losses. Meanwhile, the series of warm snaps has meant less ice on lakes with a host of potential problems there as well
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