We’re begging you to listen
I’ve been a wildlife rehabilitator for several years now and yet every baby season I’m flabbergasted by the amount of people who do the exact opposite of what we tell them to do. 🙈🙃
If we say don’t feed or give water to an animal, DO NOT do those things. I know, it seems counterintuitive, but it is literally a matter of life and death.
If we tell you to put the baby back; put the baby back. A baby’s best chance of survival is with its parents.
If we tell you the animal needs to come to us for treatment, find a way to get it to us as soon as possible. Not three days from now.
And please for the love of every animal and every wildlife rehabber out there, do not attempt to care for an animal yourself. I cannot stress enough that most of what you read on the internet about caring for wildlife is dead ass wrong and you are drastically reducing that animal’s chance of survival by trying to care for it yourself. I promise it’s not because we’re stingy and want to care for all the animals ourselves; it’s because we’re the ones who have to clean up the mess that people make when they don’t listen to our instructions. We’re the ones who have to watch your baby squirrel die of aspiration pneumonia because you syringe fed it kitten milk/ your songbird choke on the cat food you gave it/ your turtle suffer from metabolic bone disease because you fed it pet store pellets for a year. It’s exhausting and it’s heartbreaking.
Finally, I understand that wildlife rehabbers are few and far between (if you have an interest in this, PLEASE join the cause and get your necessary state license 🙏). I understand that you may have to drive several hours round trip to get us an animal and that is a huge commitment of both time and (gas) money. But I assure you, it is a bigger time commitment to take on caring for that animal yourself. Not only will it cost you time and money to buy food and supplies, but now you’re on the hook for feeding this animal until it is independent. Are you prepared to feed a baby songbird every 15 minutes from sunrise to sunset? Are you prepared to feed that raccoon every 3 hours, all day and all night, for the next several weeks/months? Are you prepared to provide that bobkitten with rodents every day for the next 6 months to a year? If you don’t have the time to get an animal to a rehabber, then you definitely don’t have the time to raise it yourself.
🫶 If you thought to reach out to a wildlife rehabilitator in the first place, it’s clear you care about the animal you found. And we love people who, like us, care about wildlife. But we’d love it even more if you’d follow our instructions exactly.
