Five ways to help wildlife in heatwaves

The guide outlines five strategies to help wildlife survive heatwaves: providing water sources like shallow dishes or ponds, offering shelter through log piles and uncut plants, ensuring food availability by watering plants and stocking bird feeders, creating diverse habitats such as wildflower meadows, and reducing surface heat by replacing concrete with plants and trees.

• Individuals can support wildlife during heatwaves by providing water via shallow dishes with stones for insects, makeshift birdbaths, or miniature ponds with ramps to prevent drowning.
• Shelter and food can be maintained by leaving garden plants uncut to provide cover and seeds, and by keeping berry-producing plants well-watered and bird feeders stocked.
• Long-term habitat creation, such as planting bee-friendly flowers or establishing wildflower meadows, assists species migrating due to climate warming, such as European curlews which moved 119 km north-east between 1981 and 2000.
• Replacing artificial surfaces like concrete with plants and trees reduces heat, as concrete paving can be over 20°C hotter than grass and tree shading can lower surface temperatures by approximately 10°C.

APA

Papworth, S. (2022). Five ways to help wildlife in heatwaves. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/wildlife-heatwaves-climate-change-animal-welfare/

Chicago

Papworth, Sarah. Five ways to help wildlife in heatwaves. World Economic Forum, 2022. https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/wildlife-heatwaves-climate-change-animal-welfare/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Papworth |first1=Sarah |title=Five ways to help wildlife in heatwaves |publisher=World Economic Forum |date=21 July 2022 |url=https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/wildlife-heatwaves-climate-change-animal-welfare/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{papworth2022five, author = {Papworth, Sarah}, title = {{Five ways to help wildlife in heatwaves}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2022}, month = jul, url = {https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/wildlife-heatwaves-climate-change-animal-welfare/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }