Going wild: From chipmunks to bears

We’re getting into wildlife a bit more this week on Omni Reporter, starting with a couple notes about chipmunks, which have been out and about quite a lot in 2020. 

Those speedy critters were apparently working on a surge in population for a while. A bumper crop of beechnuts and acorns in Vermont last fall helped greatly, allowing chipmunks to hoard those food supplies for the winter, as biologist and University of Vermont professor emeritus Bill Kilpatrick recently said on Vermont Public Radio. This led to “high survivorship from their first litter of young” in the early spring, he told VPR. And of course, spring came earlier, which helped them gain even more momentum.

Other creatures have been enjoying the mild spring, too, one of them being much larger than a chipmunk. Bears have been running a sort of neighborhood patrol lately, it seems; many are the Facebook posts about bear sightings. Could one factor be that people are just at home, walking more often, and noticing them more? Perhaps, but sightings appear to be occurring at all times of day. 

More about that on Thursday, when I speak with wildlife biologist Forrest Hammond, the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s leading bear expert. Until then, enjoy the outdoors, and if you encounter a bear, here are some safety tips to follow. 

— Gareth Henderson