Wildlife Wednesday 10/30/2024

Happy #WildlifeWednesday! You may have noticed Eastern chipmunks are particularly active right now. The cheeky rodents are busy with their winter preparations, which means gathering as much food as possible to stockpile in their dens.

Their dens are located underground, with extensive tunnel systems and multiple entrances. They conceal the entryways by covering them with leaf litter, twigs, and small rocks. Chipmunks dig crevices in the walls of their burrows to store nuts, seeds, and bulbs. They can gather over one hundred  acorns in a day, and tend to stash more food than they actually need.

Eastern chipmunks are active during the daylight hours, and spend most of their time foraging. They live mostly solitary lives, interacting with others only during the mating season and while raising their young. They are very territorial and will defend their burrows, where they will spend the winter. They do not enter true hibernation, but instead go into a state of reduced physical activity and metabolism called torpor, relying on the cache of food they collected to get them through the cold weather months.

They use their cheek pouches to gather and transport food and look pretty cute while doing it. The Wilderness Center and its fans like them so much, the Eastern chipmunk was voted to be our official daytime program mascot!