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Help! I Found A Wild Animal And Don't Know What To Do!
Finding any wild animal in need of help can be a scary or stressful situation, for you and especially for the animal. Wildlife Images can only offer advice on what to do in a situation like this. We must stress extreme caution, as wild animals are often very scared, and therefore unpredictable. We strongly advise that you use your own judgment regarding whether or not you are able to safely capture the animal to bring it to us.
If you have found an animal that you think may be orphaned, or possibly injured, we first recommend observing the animal, from a distance. If your cat brought it in your house in its mouth, or it just flew in front of you and you hit it with your car, then chances are the animal is indeed injured and you probably don’t need to observe it first. However, if you think an animal may be orphaned, there's a good chance that it is not. The information below may help you determine if the animal your are observing is indeed need of assistance.
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| PLEASE NOTE: If You Have Found a Fawn
Wildlife Images and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) have mutually decided to place a temporary moratorium on the rehabilitation of injured and orphaned fawns. Please click here for more information regarding this important situation. |
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| | WHAT TO DO IF YOU THINK YOU’VE FOUND AN ORPHANED WILD ANIMAL Wild animals are extremely good parents. Remember, they have a biological drive within them that tells them to do nothing in this world but procreate and raise offspring. We must also realize that parents need to eat, too! Although a good deal of wild parents ‘tag-team’ feeding themselves, some wild parents are solely responsible for raising their young, so there are going to be times when the offspring are left alone. If you observe the young animal from a distance (i.e., not visible or audible to the wild parent), chances are the parent(s) will come back. If you are near the young, however, or allow children or pets near the young, the parent(s) may not come back. |
| Finding a fawn is the best example of this. A doe (female deer) will leave her fawns for hours at a time and the fawns will lie very still and quiet while mom is away, leading us to believe they may be ill or injured. Unless you know for sure that the doe has died, it is very unlikely that the fawn is truly orphaned. Imagine how disappointed the doe would be to come back and find her fawn ‘kidnapped’! Again, the best approach is to observe. Don’t try to interfere unless you’re sure the animal has been orphaned or injured.
We also recommend replacing displaced young with their parent(s). The most frequently encountered example of this is a disturbed bird’s nest. If a nest has fallen from its location, even if it has become totally destroyed, and the parents are around, they will resume care of their young. A good makeshift nest is a plastic berry basket, but just about anything will do. If you are able to reach the location from which it fell, it is best to ‘scoop up’ all the nestling birds and put the nest back. If the location from which it fell is inaccessible, or gone (i.e., a felled tree), put the nestlings in a makeshift nest in a protected area, away from predators and humans.
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| Birds have a horrible sense of smell, so human handling won't cause the parents to reject their offspring. Also, although mammals have a great sense of smell, the human scent left on offspring from well-intentioned folks replacing disturbed baby mammals will not cause the mother to reject them. This is not to say that it is okay to disturb a nest of mammals. The best thing for all wild animals is to be left alone, unless human assistance is necessary.
We are certainly not discouraging you from bringing us animals you think are orphaned. We will gladly accept animals that are orphaned. We do, however, recognize that the wild parents do a much better job of raising their young than we can ever hope to do and if we can re-unite the orphans with their parents that is the best possible thing for them. If you are in doubt as to whether or not an animal is truly orphaned, give us a call and we should be able to talk you through the situation and help you determine if human intervention is needed. We like to think of it this way: if we find a lost child in a store, we don’t run it to the orphanage; we try to locate the parents. The same is true for wild animals.
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| WHAT TO DO IF YOU THINK YOU’VE FOUND AN INJURED WILD ANIMAL
If you have found an injured wild animal, the best thing you can do for that animal is to bring it to us. Again, we must stress extreme caution. If you feel you are unable to safely capture the animal, we do not recommend that you attempt to do this. However, if after using your best judgment you decide you can, here are a few pointers.
The most important thing is that you protect yourself. Heavy-duty leather gloves, a blanket or a towel will help protect you from a scared, and most likely dangerous, animal. For containing the animal, we recommend cardboard boxes for most birds or pet kennels for mammals. Just about anything will do, as long as it is strong enough to contain the animal and has adequate ventilation. |
| Now that you have the animal contained, it is essential to remember that this is a wild animal, not a pet. It is extremely stressful for any wild animal to be handled by humans. It is very important to keep the animal in a quiet, preferably dark location, away from pets and children, until you are able to transport it to us. A warmer location is usually best for birds and orphans of all species, and for mammals a cooler location is usually better. Please remember during the animal’s drive to the “hospital” that noise is very stressful, too, and that it would be best to keep talking to a minimum, as well as the radio off, in your vehicle.
If you are unable to bring the animal to us immediately, do not feed it or attempt to treat it in any way. Orphaned wild animals have very special needs and feeding it the wrong thing can cause illness, and sometimes death. An injured wild animal is in pain, and therefore very scared and unpredictable. Any attempt to handle it or ‘fix it’ may cause both you and the animal further injury. Just keep it quiet and in a dark location to keep it as stress-free as possible until you are able to bring it to us.
If you have contained an animal after our normal business hours, please call us at (541) 476-0222 and leave us a message. We will get back to you as soon as possible in the morning. We also encourage you to give us a call if you have questions regarding an animal’s needs. We’re here to help the animals!
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