The Toronto Wildlife Centre is worried that if the city’s cold spell keeps up, waterfowl and raccoons may be at risk.
The centre’s executive director says they have already performed several rescues, mainly birds stuck in freezing water. But any prolonged freezing temperatures will mean the charity-based group needs more donations to operate rescues or animals may risk death.
“The biggest group of animals we’re worried about right now is water birds, because the lakes, streams and ponds are freezing over super fast,” Nathalie Karvonen said Thursday. “Even the mammals who rely on water, like Muskrats, are losing their open water really fast. Some of these animals we’ve already had to do rescues where they’ve been frozen into the ice.”
A few years ago, Karvonen said there were a couple of winters where the Great Lakes nearly froze completely and “there was a massive die-off of water birds because they literally couldn’t get to open water anywhere to feed. We’re really hoping that’s not the winter we’re in for.”
Toronto Animal Services is not allowed, nor equipped, to perform those bird rescues, Karvonen confirmed. The wildlife centre is the only organization in the province that can perform such rescues.
“Our challenge then becomes resources as we only have one rescue team in the field,” she said. “We’re not quite there yet, but if it does become an issue where there are numbers, then we’re going to have to appeal for help from the public.”
Two ducks try to evade rescue by the Toronto Police Marine unit – as they had nowhere to go as Grenadier Pond has frozen around them on December 28, 2009. (Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun files)
She hopes people will alert the wildlife centre if they see any Toronto wild animals in need of help.
Raccoons are less at risk than birds, said Karvonen, as the healthy ones fatten up in the fall. But if it gets too cold, they’re inclined to stay in their dens and can’t look for more food. And if that lasts for several more weeks, then they might not have the nourishment and water to sustain themselves.
“It might be a little bit of a concern if we have a prolonged cold the way we’ve been having,” she said. “I wouldn’t worry too much about them…but if they get to the beginning of March, where they’ve been living off those fat reserves all winter, they’re going to be much less equipped to sustain prolonged periods of cold. Simply, they won’t have fat reserves for food, but also won’t have fat reserves to keep them warm enough.”