They also spend the hottest and driest time of the day underground where it is cool and humid. Gummer believes that the Canadian prairie version of the Ord's kangaroo rat may be different from its American cousin. Our Canadian population is isolated from those that are found in Montana. Up here they may well have evolved to adapt to a longer harsher winter, and to different food sources. Also , unlike its southern cousin, Canada's kangaroo rat goes into a shallow hibernation during the winter.
Winters take their toll on the species.
Gummer has done one study that suggests only 10 per cent of the kangaroo rats survive the season. Being so isolated and with limited habitat available to them, a very harsh winter combined with another catastrophic event could really push back the numbers. While kangaroo rats burrow and hunt on the sand dune habitat of the southern Prairies, Gummer has found they will occupy other areas such as fire breaks and the sand and gravel surfaces found in the Suffield Military Reserve. The military reserve, in fact, is home to the largest population of kangaroo rats in Canada, at least the largest that has been found and studied thus far. In 1995, Gummer recommended the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada list the kangaroo rat as vulnerable.