{"id":455140,"date":"2026-02-07T21:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T21:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/455140\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T21:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T21:12:07","slug":"nearly-all-cape-may-points-woodcocks-have-died-from-the-cold-and-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/455140\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly all Cape May Point’s woodcocks have died from the cold and ice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Frates of Ocean View, N.J., was driving along Route 9 in Cape May<\/a> County on a recent bitter cold day and noticed something strange: dead robins lying by the side of the road. <\/p>\n

Lots of them.<\/p>\n

Frates was even more startled when one flew into his Ford F-150 and died. The 72-year-old retired telecommunications manager wondered what was happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cI noticed when it was really cold that I would see flocks of birds alongside of the road as I was traveling up and down Route 9 and the Garden State Parkway,\u201d Frates said. \u201cI would see a lot of birds that had been hit. I\u2019d never seen anything at that scale. This was at a level I\u2019ve never experienced before.\u201d <\/p>\n

The winter has been hard on the region\u2019s animals, wiping out 95% of the woodcocks in Cape May Point, fostering frostbite on opossums in Philadelphia, and freezing turtles in place in ponds.<\/p>\n

Experts say the animals are well adapted to survive the cold, but this winter has been especially harsh, producing a frozen snowpack that keeps animals from digging for food, and a prolonged cold that has pushed some to the brink. <\/p>\n

Woodcocks are starving<\/p>\n

Mike Lanzone, a wildlife biologist and CEO of Cellular Tracking Technologies, has been busy the last two weeks helping to gather hundreds of dead woodcocks in Cape May Point and West Cape May. His company makes products that track birds via GPS and other technology.<\/p>\n

He described a devastating die-off for the woodcocks, which depend on finding food by probing the ground to extract worms and invertebrates. They have been unable to penetrate the snow and ice, causing starvation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were losing a lot of muscle mass, and they weren\u2019t able to eat anything,\u201d Lanzone said. \u201cWe started seeing them die off. First it was just a few. Then 10. Then 15. Then 40. Then almost 100 woodcocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lanzone said about 254 woodcocks had died as of Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was at least a 90-95% die-off,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is what we know for sure. At least in Cape May Point and West Cape May.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lanzone said the woodcocks were being taken to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University<\/a> in Philadelphia to be examined.<\/p>\n

Jason D. Weckstein, associate curator of ornithology at the academy, said such die-offs have happened before. He will examine the birds and, using chemical signatures in their bodies, determine where they were born. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re dying because they\u2019re starving,\u201d Weckstein said. \u201cThey can\u2019t feed. Most of those birds were super emaciated and just died.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robins are desperate<\/p>\n

Chris Neff, a spokesperson for New Jersey Audubon, said the robins that Frates saw along the side of the road had been driven there in search of food.<\/p>\n

\u201cBirds are congregating along the melted edges of roads searching for bare ground on which to find food and even meltwater to drink,\u201c Neff said. \u201dBirds are desperate to consume enough calories each day during this extreme weather, and this makes them bolder, meaning they may not fly off when a car approaches if they have found something to eat.”<\/p>\n

American robins, he said, travel in large flocks. When their food is exhausted, a few will take off in search of the berries of American holly and Eastern red cedar. The rest will follow en masse, following a path that might lead them across a road.<\/p>\n

The chances of collisions with cars become much higher.<\/p>\n

Neff advises that people should slow down if they see birds congregating along a road and keep an eye out for any that might fly across.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike deer,\u201d Neff said, \u201dif one darts across the road, there are sure to be more following.”<\/p>\n

Opossums and other animals<\/p>\n

Sydney Glisan, director of wildlife rehabilitation for the Wildlife Clinic at the Schuylkill<\/a> Center for Environmental Education in Northwest Philadelphia, characterizes the severe winter conditions as a critical \u201cmake it or not\u201d period for local wildlife. <\/p>\n

Some animals, such as deer, are well adapted to the cold and can eat fibrous bark and twigs to survive. Other species, however, struggle.<\/p>\n

She said Virginia opossums found in Philadelphia, despite being a native species, have physical attributes that \u201cdo not really work for this type of weather.\u201d She has treated multiple opossums for frostbite. The latest patient arrived Friday.<\/p>\n

They are susceptible, she said, because their ears, tails, and paws have no fur for protection. Often, tails or fingers need to be amputated. <\/p>\n

Residents often find them curled up and immobile, mistakenly believing the animals are dead when they are actually just trying to stay warm or are in a state of shock.<\/p>\n

The weather also affects aquatic birds like grebes, which become stranded on land because they require open water to take off and cannot walk well on ice or ground. <\/p>\n

Even squirrels struggle, as the ice prevents them from digging up cached food, Glisan said. <\/p>\n

Glisan advises the public to be cautious about intervening for wildlife such as birds. She notes that even well-intentioned acts, such as providing heated birdbaths, can result in hypothermia if a bird\u2019s wet feathers subsequently freeze in the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as it might sound rude, I always say doing nothing is the best thing that you can do,\u201d Glisan said. \u201cI recommend helping by not helping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reptiles and amphibians<\/p>\n

Susan Slawinski, a wildlife biologist at the Schuylkill Center, said the danger for reptiles and amphibians comes as lakes and ponds freeze over. Aquatic species such as green frogs, painted turtles, and snapping turtles overwinter at the bottom of ponds.<\/p>\n

There, the animals survive by slowing their metabolisms enough to eliminate the need to eat or surface for air. However, prolonged cold poses a specific danger as ponds freeze solid to the bottom. Those hibernating will perish. <\/p>\n

The Schuylkill Center uses a bubbler in its Fire Pond to maintain a gap in the ice to let in oxygen. <\/p>\n

Despite the risks, Slawinski emphasizes that native wildlife is historically resilient, though mortality is an unfortunate reality for animals that select poor hibernation spots.<\/p>\n

For example, the gray tree frog uses glucose to create a natural \u201cantifreeze\u201d that prevents its cell walls from bursting in freezing temperatures. <\/p>\n

\u201cNative wildlife is very good at adapting to cold temperatures,\u201d Slawinski said. \u201cThere have been colder winters, longer winters before. Unfortunately, there is always going to be a mortality risk.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Frates of Ocean View, N.J., was driving along Route 9 in Cape May County on a recent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[212861,79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-455140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-cold-temperatures-harming-woodcocks-robins-opossums","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}