Weather prompts geese to make early return to southern Quebec

An unusually mild winter in southern Quebec brought the Ecomuseum's black bear, Genie, out of hibernation early.

But she's not the only wildlife feeling the effects of warmer weather: geese have also been spotted flying overhead, and toddling around at ground level too.

"We see a lot of birds that are coming back from their migration stopover sites or their warmer sites that they migrate to," said Nathalie Jreidini, zoo education director at the Ecomuseum.

Jreidini said many of the zoo's ducks, which stay indoors during the winter, have already been put back outside: "We've also put back a lot of the ducks into the aviary," she explained.

Dr. Djordje Romanic, professor at McGill University's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, said the spring is also expected to be warmer than usual.

"Forecasts published by Environment and Climate Change Canada indicate that the spring season, March, April, May, will be indeed warmer than average over the [entirety] of Canada, but particularly over northern Ontario and Quebec," he told CTV News.

It's a phenomenon we might want to get accustomed to.

"It is very difficult to say what you'll have in 20, 30 years from now. But all models suggest that we will a global increase of temperature," Romanic explained.

"Now, a global increase of temperature doesn't mean regionally, temperatures everywhere increase [equally]. Numerical models do suggest that Canada warms at a rate of approximately two times faster than the global average."