Animal Patterns

Animal Patterns

UPDATE: MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - For the last few weeks Michiganders have experienced unseasonably warm weather, during a time where we're use to still be wearing warmer coats. But how does this effect the animals that should still be hibernating?

Harris Nature Center Park Naturalist Kati Adams said, "we've seen some birds that aren't suppose to be her all winter, you know like the blue birds are suppose to leave and as the years go by and global warming continues we're starting to see some of the migratory birds are migrating any more and it's really kind of strange maybe kind of scary to see this shift in nature what it's "suppose to do" and what has always been written in the books it's changing and we haven't seen it's effects on any populations yet or haven't seen a whole lot of research on it yet so so far it looks like they're managing and doing okay."

Even though the weather is getting warmer and more people go out to enjoy nature, guests are strictly warned against feeding certain foods to animals where ever they go.

"Any human food is a no no for any kind of wild life and bread is especially the worse thing and we see a lot of people feeding the ducks bread, basically when you give a wild animal bread you're helping it starve to death. What happens is you're giving them something they're not use you're also teaching them that you're forever going to feed them and so they become reliant on you to feed them and when you stop feeding them they will starve to death because they have forgotten what they're suppose to be doing." Said Adams.


ORIGINAL STORY: MERIDIAN TOWNSHIP - The recent warm weather has made the outdoors a bit more enjoyable for most locals, while other are coming out of a long sleep are quite disoriented. Find out how the animals are coping on the next episode of "Changing Seasons" beginning April 5th.

Additional Resources
The Harris Nature Center is opened Tuesday to Saturday from 9am-4pm and Sunday 12-4pm, and all visits to the building are free.

Meridian Weather