On this Mother's Day we'd like to remind everyone about babies - wild babies and their moms, and their struggle to survive in 'our' world.
It's nearing the peak of 'baby season'. This is a treacherous time for wild animals raising young in close proximity to humans for this is also the time of year when people choose to trim trees and shrubs, plow fields, and mow tall grasses - destroying nests and hiding places.
Spring and summer is also the time for increased complaints about wildlife - a mother raccoon, skunk, or fox, denning under a home; a female opossum caught crossing a lawn at daybreak - her marsupial pocket stretched to its extreme; a mallard hen with her thirteen fuzzy ducklings enjoying a private swimming pool; a red-shouldered hawk protecting her downy chicks, dive-bombing at passersby. We receive hundreds of calls from people seeking relief from these wild mothers - from what is perceived as either a tremendous threat or a great annoyance. We do our best to resolve a person's immediate concerns, but what is most needed, especially this time of year, is greater tolerance and understanding for mothers or all species.
Not all calls are from people complaining about wildlife (thankfully) - we receive numerous requests for help, from people who have found a baby wild animal.
This time of year, wildlife hospitals are inundated with baby animals - many that are perfectly healthy, inadvertently orphaned by those thinking they are doing the right thing by picking them up. It's certainly right to pick up a helpless baby that's in a precarious situation - on a sidewalk or alongside a busy roadway. Often, though, all they need is to be re-situated a few yards away, under bush or on a low branch. Mom is probably close by.
When finders deliver healthy babies to shelters or rehabilitation facilities, the chance to reunite them with their parents may be lost. Too often, the finder's contact information goes undocumented or is lost during transfer, and unless a rehabilitation program has the resources to send out a team to attempt a reunion, they may be left to raise them in a captive setting, without wild parents to teach them necessary skills.
Wild animals stand the greatest chance of surviving as adults if they are raised by wild parents. From wild parents they learn where to forage, how to hunt, what to eat, birds learn their song, they learn social etiquette, they are shown what to fear, where to hide and seek shelter. These are all things essential to their survival. Things that even the greatest rehabilitator in the world cannot teach them.
To do right by wild babies, every effort must be made to keep them in the wild. Thankfully, there is a growing trend to reunite, re-nest, and wild-foster whenever possible.
Please see our latest blog entry for a recent story about re-nesting a clutch of robins - a collaborative effort between two wildlife rescue programs.
If you happen across a wild baby that you think might be orphaned - please give us a call and we will help you in determining what to do for it.
