• Question: How does global warming hurt animals

    Asked by anon-224262 to Stuart, Scott, Lisa, Jack, Caragh, Alex on 12 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Stuart Goldie

      Stuart Goldie answered on 12 Nov 2019:

      Animals and plants rely on the weather to know what to do; things like leaves falling off trees when it gets colder or animals cuddling up and hibernating or sleeping all through the winter. As the climate changes animals get confused and then they can’t find food or it’s too cold or hot for them. Many plants also need the right temperature to grow, as it gets hotter the same plants can’t grow as well and the animals that eat those plants can’t find enough food.
      Other people can probably say more but all the plants and animals are connected to each other and even small changes can hurt lots of animals unfortunately.

    • Photo: Caragh Whitehead

      Caragh Whitehead answered on 14 Nov 2019:

      Great answer from Stuart.

    • Photo: Alex Batchelor

      Alex Batchelor answered on 14 Nov 2019:

      Adding to what Stuart said, if the weather changes the plants get confused too. Lots of plants rely on the change from winter to spring to tell them when grow and also when to flower and start making fruit. If they get confused by the climate being different then they grow and fruit at the wrong time which can be really bad for animals. For example if a plant that usually has fruit in autumn gets mixed up and has fruit during summer then animals won’t be able to build up food stores during autumn and could starve over winter.

    • Photo: Jack Saunders

      Jack Saunders answered on 14 Nov 2019:

      Really good answers from both Stuart and Alex – it’s interesting to learn about how important animals and plants are and how closely they affect each other.

Comments