Everyone knows chipmunks need their sleep — otherwise they get ornery and attack you in local parks. Oh, and they're also more likely to die.
Global warming, it seems, has shortened the hibernation period for animals like bears, marmots and chipmunks like Mr. Cutie Pants over there. But it leads to more than animals just getting crankier: They wake up earlier thinking it's spring, but the food sources often haven't caught up, and the animals starve. So much for the early-bird-gets-the-worm theory; it's more like "the early bird gets the shaft."
Researchers at the Rocky Mountain Biological lab have checked up on marmot hibernation behavior since the 1970s, and because temperatures have risen by about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit in recent times, they've seen the marmots awaken from their dens about a month earlier.
Because of the temperature change, some animals don't hibernate at all. Brown bears in Spain skipped out on hibernation as did chipmunks in the U.S., and while the bears didn't take much of a population hit, many early-rising chipmunks starved or got chomped by predators.
