Dormice are highly susceptible to climate disruption during hibernation. Understanding the specific welfare risks of climate change for dormice guides conservation priorities.
Dormouse hibernation welfare illustrates how climate change creates welfare harms through disrupting physiological systems evolved for stable seasonal patterns. A dormouse aroused from hibernation by a mild January day is not simply woken - it is physiologically forced into a metabolically expensive state at a time when no food is available and temperatures will soon drop again, requiring another hibernation entry. Repeated arousals can exhaust fat reserves to a point where survival to spring is impossible. This is a welfare harm caused by climate change operating at the scale of individual animals. The conservation response - maintaining woodland connectivity, restoring hazel coppice, and ensuring food availability - helps but cannot fully compensate for climatic disruption.