LOOMIS, Calif. (AP) – The scarcity of food in the wild has been blamed for unusual animal activity during California’s drought including a recent bear attack, mountain lion sightings and an uptick in orphaned animals.
But the devastating four-year drought that’s dried up streams and vegetation isn’t the sole cause, state officials and experts say. Instead, they say the drought is exacerbating long-term trends and natural animal behaviors in a state that is becoming increasingly developed
Pools and lush gardens in residential areas are attractive to animals forced out of their normal homes. The construction of roads and business developments, along with man’s increased movement into rural areas, had begun fragmenting habitats before the drought.
“You have a longer-term trend exacerbated by this acute change in water availability,” said Dick Cameron, a scientist who studies habitat fragmentation for The Nature Conservancy in California.
Diane Nicholas believes a dearth of water and fresh vegetation in the Sierra Foothills is behind what’s been the busiest year for her fawn rescue in Loomis, California, near Sacramento. For nine years, the Kindred Spirits Fawn rescue has cared for hundreds of fawns found injured on roads or caught in fences, near dead mothers in the wild or alone on suburban lawns.