Unlike the prolonged, hotter months of some years gone by, the 2023 Shepparton summer has produced temperature variations.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, Shepparton has already cracked the 40°C barrier this month after not recording a single plus 40°C day in 2022.
The mercury at Shepparton airport peaked at 40.9ºC on Friday, February 17 — the first time the city’s temperature had exceeded 40ºC since December 17, 2021.
The lowest temperature this month, a crisp 17.6℃, was recorded only weeks earlier on Friday, February 3.
It was the coldest February day recorded in Shepparton since that exact date in 2005.
Like extreme heat, these fluctuations impact local flora and fauna which has to endure large temperature changes which could weaken the immune systems or cause illness.
We too would suffer similar discomfort due to weather conditions if it weren’t for our ability to adapt to changes in temperature by wearing suitable clothing and using heating and cooling.
Kirsty Ramadan has seen first-hand what weather changes could do to our native wildlife.
Ms Ramadan runs Bohollow Wildlife Shelter, a not-for-profit animal shelter located in Bunbartha and Kotupna.
“We’ve been lucky this summer because we haven’t had many days over 40℃ as in previous years,” Ms Ramadan said.
“When it gets above 38℃, animals start to struggle, but what our problem this year has been not so much the higher temperature, but more so the fluctuations in temperature.”
She said native birds, marsupials and other mammals had struggled through a variable spring and summer.
“When it’s sitting up around 38℃ then it drops back to low 20s, animals don’t like that,” Ms Ramadan said.
“Animals will struggle through those radical changes, they’ll often cope with 40℃ if we have had a gradual lead into it, instead of a rapid change from 25 to 38℃, that can be just as damaging to them as three days of extreme heat.”
According to Ms Ramadan, the grey-headed flying fox, an animal known to be susceptible to extreme heat, had suffered more during October’s flood events and its cooler temperatures during what were their major birthing months.
“In general, animals old or young don’t cope with a drastic shift in seasons, but there are some species which are more affected than others, animals like our flying foxes — the grey-headed flying fox which is endangered in Victoria and is located in Shepparton and surrounds,” she said.
"We’ve got two major colonies in Numurkah and Tatura, the problem this spring/summer season has been the radical change that affected the new pups.
“We lost a great number of flying fox pups in those colonies that died when temperatures dropped almost overnight.”
As summer rolls on, Ms Ramadan reminded the community to consider wildlife on hotter days.
“On an extreme heat day — anything above 36℃ — if you can provide clean, fresh drinking water that makes a huge difference,” she said.
“If you’re able to run a sprinkler on those hot days, that makes a huge difference to our native birds and critters if they’re feeling heat stress.
“It can be life or death for them really.”