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Asked by 284anta22 to Ceri, Marikka, Matt, Rob, Sally on 12 Nov 2014.
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Marikka Beecroft answered on 12 Nov 2014:
This is a brilliant question!! Animals hibernate to survive cold weather and food becomes less available. There two main reasons why we as human beings don’t hibernate: 1) we evolved from ancestors who lived a tropical environments and hibernating was never really needed. We only moved to colder climates in the past thousand years so our bodies haven’t evolved chemically or physically to hibernate.
2) We adapted to cold environments and we have food available to us all year round. So for example when we realize it’s cold out we put on a jacket, hat gloves, scarf or boots and we stock pile food in the form of canned or frozen so we can eat for the next few weeks or months. If we run out we just go to the shops! Hope that helps!
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Ceri Dare answered on 12 Nov 2014:
Today in Aberdeen it is pouring with sleety rain, and still dark at 09:30 in the morning. I wish I could hibernate!
Marikka’s answer is right though – humans didn’t evolve in places where we needed to hibernate, and now we have warm clothes and heating instead.
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Sally Cutler answered on 12 Nov 2014:
Sometimes I wish we could! Afraid our bodies are not designed in such a way as to allow us to go into this kind of resting state.
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Robert Hampson answered on 12 Nov 2014:
Many mammals hibernate. Like migration, it is both a biological and a behavioural adaptation to the lack of easily available food and water in the winter months.
We adapted to colder climates by farming, and learning how to effectively store food. If you think about medieval times, they didn’t really do much in the winter, they just ate the food they stored, maybe occaisionally killed some livestock to eat and stayed warm. Its not really too different from hibernating anyway. Hibernating creatures aren’t permanently asleep for the winter, they just massively reduce their activities.
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