Animals know how to handle cold weather

Rick Brockway

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December 30, 2011

Anonymous Daily Star The Daily Star Fri Dec 30, 2011, 02:24 AM EST

We have a 32-year-old appaloosa that loves to be up on the hill, looking down the valley no matter what the weather.

He's as fat as a butterball and has a barn to get inside, but he'll stand up on the knoll with his butt to the driving wind, rain or snow, keeping a watchful eye over his domain.

Animals have different ways to deal with the harsh winter weather we have here in the northeast. Sure, some wild animals migrate to warmer climates. Ducks and geese and even some butterflies will head south for the warmer climates. Many people do the same thing. We call them snowbirds.

Other wild creatures hibernate by crawling into some sheltered place to sleep for the winter. Bears are the first ones that to come to mind. With their main food supplies covered by ice and snow, they eat all summer, put on a layer of fat and are not seen again until spring. I think I know a few people like that as well.

When I kept a camp in the Adirondack backcountry, there was a bear that actually hibernated under an old log cabin one winter. He was safe under there. Who knows? Maybe he even got a little warmth from the wood stove.

I guess he was just a little "smarter than the average bear." He only did that one winter though. Maybe the skiers and snowmobilers were too noisy and kept disturbing his sleep.

Other animals adapt and spend their winters right outside, no matter what the weather. They also put on a layer of fat, grow thicker coats and do just fine, even when temperatures drop below zero and the wind blows from the north at 40 miles an hour.

In last week's column, I talked about caribou. They wander all summer and eat to build up fat layers, but their heavy coats keep them warm during the brutal northern winters. The outer hair of their coats is course and hollow. It sheds water, blocks the wind, traps air and holds in body heat. The inner layer is finer and much more dense, thus insulating their bodies from the Arctic's wrath.

Our deer survive very well in winter. They travel less to maintain energy and bed in the snow to help keep them warm. They also build up a layer of body fat, and their coats thicken to help maintain their body heat. They bed in thick pines and hemlocks out of the wind and use their home range to their advantage.

I hunted a lot in the Adirondacks for years. I liked to hunt up high on the mountain tops.

When the weather got nasty and the crystal-white frost covered the ridge tops, I'd always hunt the eastern side of the mountains in the early morning. I found that when the snow was deep and you could feel the frigid cold in your nostrils, the deer would always be bedded where the sun would hit them when it rose in the morning.

I've watched deer get up from their beds, shake off a blanket of snow that fell during the night and lay back down, letting their dark coats absorb the sun's rays and warmth.

So far this winter, the animals seem to have gotten a break. The weather has been unseasonably warm with very little snow.

As long as there's snow on the ski slopes, I don't care. But one thing's for sure: No matter what Mother Nature throws at our wild creatures, most of them will do just fine.

Rick Brockway writes a weekly outdoors column for The Daily Star. Email him at robrockway@hotmail.com.