How Vermont animals survive freezing temps

There are a few different types of people when it comes to winter. There are migrators — the snowbirds, the Florida folk. There's the active bunch — the ones who, when you complain about winter, they cry out, "But have you even tried cross country skiing?" And then there are the hibernators — the bookworms, stew cookers, knitters and tea drinkers.

Animals' winter survival strategies fall along similar lines. On Wednesday a trio of animal experts guided Vermont Edition listeners on a tour of our ecosystem in winter. We've compiled some of their best facts about overwintering, alongside stories from listeners.

The guests were: Ash Kerby-Miller, a staff naturalist at North Branch Nature Center, Sophie Mazowita, a consulting naturalist, educator, and wildlife tracker from Jeffersonville, and Gregory Pask, an insect chemical ecologist and associate professor of biology at Middlebury College.

"In our human experience of winter, it's a very tough time for a lot of us," Kerby-Miller said. "But for some animals, we are at the southern end, the warm end, of their range, and this is just a perfectly comfortable place for them."

Broadcast live on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.

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