- Video shows some of the wildlife spotted at the Dahlem Conservancy.
- With some of February's temperatures breaking record highs, Executive Director, Hannah Schauer is sharing how the unseasonably warm temperatures might affect local wildlife.
- Bees are one of the main critters affected by these early spring-like temperatures.
With temperatures creeping up, more wildlife is peeking out, and not the kind our neighborhoods like to see. Hannah Schauer, Executive Director of the Dahlem Conservancy, shares that they've already seen ticks and mosquitos on these warm-winter days.
On the other side of the love/hate scale is bees and the honey they produce. Schauer says there could be impacts this year. "We've noticed with our observation, honey bees...they've been out and about looking for food resources on the warmer days, but being winter, there's not a lot of that available for them. Some of them may not survive, given the warmer weather."
That comes at a time when bees are already buzzing for help. According to the University of Michigan, honeybee colonies have seen population declines because of habitat loss, parasites and disease, and pesticide use.
From one sweet treat to another, the lack of freezing temperatures mean a lack of sap-flow in our trees. Schauer says "We had a very short time period to collect sap. I mean, after a while, once it starts feeding the branches, it doesn't taste good anymore. You wouldn't want to turn that into syrup."
Even as more critters peek out, the team at Dahlem hopes, for the ecosystem's sake that temperatures soon creep back down.
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