Threats to wildlife in winter

Dr Alex Sutton, Lecturer in Zoology, has published new work on threats to wildlife during winter, as part of an ongoing winter ecology working group that spans 11 Universities and government departments from three countries.

Winter often conjures images of a cold, dark, snow, and icy conditions, especially at high latitudes. These harsh conditions impose a variety of challenges on individuals and ecosystems, but relatively little work has focused on the implications of winter for conservation and how this may interact with threats faced by wildlife.

Alex’s work, as part of an ongoing winter ecology working group, used the threat and action taxonomies produced by the International Union of Conservation of Nature Conservation Measures Partnership to characterize threats that emerge during or result from winter.

They discussed how the identification of these threats can lead to targeted management approaches for conservation initiatives that occur throughout the winter.

Unsurprisingly, there are a multitude of threats that organisms face throughout winter. Overwintering habitats may be destroyed or lost, hibernation may be disrupted by human activities, or the wildlife may come into conflict with people’s winter-specific recreational pastimes. These threats are particularly significant for wildlife because they could interact with winter-related constraints on food and shelter, and with climate change, complicating the development or implementation of management practices.

There is growing acknowledgement of the importance of the winter season, and targeted management of wildlife throughout the winter. A growing number of new initiatives suggest that we could be approaching a turning point for applied winter biology. It is imperative to consider threats to wildlife throughout the winter, and to develop conservation and management strategies that incorporate winter-specific strategies to ensure that events during this important, but often overlooked, season are incorporated into management planning decisions.

If you’d like to learn more about this research, you can find the full paper here: https://academic.oup.com/conphys/article/11/1/coad027/7158675#404888411.