Just when I think I am getting my knowledge on about this whole environmental tip I end up with a spanner in the backside.
This I am cool with:
The behaviour of Britain's wildlife is raising alarm about the seriousness of climate change as animals' breeding patterns are thrown into confusion. The second mildest winter on record has resulted in mammals, reptiles, birds and insects emerging from shelter far too early.
Fine with this too, global warming is the (not so stone cold) killa:
The visible impact on Britain's wildlife has manifested itself in the form of earlier than normal breeding, egg-laying, nesting and flowering of plants and trees, observed in British wildlife for more than 15 years and now linked to global warming in a whole series of scientific studies. They have sparked huge new interest in the discipline of phenology the timing of natural events.
Then I get a lorry full of this shovelled down my gullet:
They are getting caught out by cold snaps or wet weather and the young of many species are dying. Baby hedgehogs, baby squirrels, even baby grass snakes are being found in distress in many places.
...
A typical inhabitant is Bushy, as he has been named by staff, a 10-day-old grey squirrel, still blind and about four inches long. He is being bottle fed and even needs human help to make his bladder work, a job normally done by his mother, from whom he was separated when their nest was disturbed by tree cutters.
"He really should not be here. He was born two or three weeks before he should have been,'' says Les Stocker, the founder of Tiggywinkles. " This is the busiest year we have had for these kind of animals being brought in,'' he added. "The animals are becoming active and mating earlier than normal, but you can still get sudden cold snaps to which they are vulnerable."
Cold weather can either kill young animals or prompt them into hibernation, from which they do not awake because they lack sufficient fat reserves.
Which is it out there? Warming, cooling, everything? These swampies seem to be pimpin' all sides. Usually a sign that somebody is getting paid, hard. A possible insight into my interest in the subject, yo-yo?
A decree from the King, any animals out there needin' some extra fat reserves should swing by the crib of my boy Caspah, his mum and sis got mad fat to spare.
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