01/31/2026
This is a remarkable finding. It supports the research that proves that supplemental feeding helps with over winter survival. 71.4% die off in one week is a wildlife catastrophe!
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1C5KCd46QH/?mibextid=WC7FNe
Some quick numbers concerning how our study site fared during the storm:
Hours at/below freezing: 95 hours.
Lowest air temperature recorded: 4° F.
Lowest windchill recorded: -13° F.
Our onsite weather station does not have heated sensors, so we can't know exactly how much ice and snow we received, but we do know that like many places, we received a decent layer of freezing rain over which ~3 - 4 inches of snow fell.
We were trapping bobwhites in the days before the storm, and have resumed trapping after it began to warm of this week. Of the birds we caught last week and recaptured this week, the average weight loss was 25.7 g. The lowest amount was 1 g, the highest amount was 63 g. That was nearly 40% of its mass lost in nine days!
Our main study right now is comparing areas receiving intensive management (year-round supplemental feeding into the habitat and seasonal meso-mammal removal) to areas not receiving this management.
Our treatment area (the area being fed) had 5.9% of radio collared birds die between Friday 23 January and yesterday, 29 January.
The control area (no broadcast feeding) lost 71.4% of radio collared birds during the same time.
We have documented the survival benefits during snow/ice of broadcasting milo into the cover in the past, but this is just a continuing example of how much of a difference it can make.