Wildlife Words

Thanks to the folks at WCHL for helping spread the word about wildlife issues. Wildlife Words are short commentaries about wildlife issues produced by WCHL and featuring our own Dr. Bobby Schopler. These one minute public service announcements provide information about how we can better live together with our wild neighbors.

For specific instructions on what to do if you have found an animal, please CLICK HERE.

These files are used with permission from WCHL.

• Sharing the Road With Turtles (1.8 MB mpg) (text)
• Found a Baby Bird That Needs Help? (1.8 MB mpg) (text)
• Chimney Swifts Visiting for the Summer? (1.8 MB mpg) (text)
• Finding a Fawn Without its Mother (1.8 MB mpg) (text)
• Baby Bunny Nest Accidentally Uncovered (1.8 MB mpg) (text)
• Deer Crossings (text)
• Wildlife as Pets (text)
• Wildlife and Rabies (text)
• Squirrels are wild animals too! (text)

Sharing the Road With Turtles

Here’s a turtle tip. Most people don’t mind sharing the road but are rightfully concerned about the safety of our ponderously slow neighbors. Before you help a turtle cross the road keep these tips in mind.

• Pull well off the road in an area of good visibility
• Go away from the road as you walk back to where the turtle is crossing (drivers may avoid you at the turtles expense).
• Stop, look and Listen before going into the road
• small turtles should be picked up grasping the rear half of the shell, large turtles can be herded into a box with a stick and then carried across the road
• Move the turtle across the road in the same direction it was heading (If you put it in the other direction the turtle will repeat the attempt to cross)

Found a Baby Bird that Needs Help?

Here are some tips for what to do if you find a baby bird on the ground:

• If the baby is unfeathered and has it’s eyes closed, but is active, and has no obvious injury, look up and find it’s nest. Place it back in the nest asap. Baby birds are rejected because they are cold, not because of human scent.
• If the baby is partially or fully feathered and has a tail less than ½ inch long, it is a fledgling and is learning to fly. If it is not injured leave it alone, watch from a distance. The parent feeds it’s baby every 30 minutes or so. It takes 3-5 days for most songbirds to learn to fly. They spend those days on the ground being fed and learning the ropes, guarded by anxious parents.
• If you want to do something for the baby keep your pets on a leash or indoors and encourage your neighbors to as well.

Chimney Swifts Visiting for the Summer?

Many animals can explore or inhabit our chimneys. This time of year chimney swifts are constructing their nests and hatching their chicks inside chimneys. Like bats, these gregarious insectivorous birds eat thousands of mosquitoes an evening and are a delight for outdoor viewing. Though welcome guests in my chimney, these noisy neighbors are not for everyone. If you don’t want to share your chimney with other animals have a chimney cap installed. But it’s too late for this season because of the serious risk of trapping an animal in your chimney. Keep your chimney friendly and only get chimneys capped between October 30th and March 1st. At the PWC we are always looking for friendly chimneys in which to place homeless baby swifts. Adults will accept other swift’s offspring. They are raised communally. If you can help or have wildlife questions call us at 572-9453.

Finding a Fawn Without its Mother

We get many calls from concerned citizens about fawns. They are concerned that the fawn doesn’t have a mother. If you find yourself in this situation remember:

• If it is wounded, or being attacked, call the Piedmont Wildlife Center @ 572-9453 between 9am and 6pm or call 911 after hours.
• Deer usually have twins.
• Mother deer leave their healthy fawns for hours while they forage for food.
• Fawns naturally lie still while mom is gone their biggest defense against predation is scentless camouflage
• If you find one of these spotted big-eyed beautiful babies resist the temptation to pick it up and take it home. Mom is usually nearby and will reunite with her baby and move it to a new spot when the coast is clear.
• If you are concerned come back in 12 hours. If the fawn is still there call a rehabilitator.

Baby Bunny Nest Accidentally Uncovered

At this time of year rabbit nests full of bunnies are often accidentally uncovered. If you discover a baby bunny with its eyes still shut do the following:

• If it is wounded, being attacked (or played with by a dog or cat), call the Piedmont Wildlife Center @ 572-9453 between 9am and 6pm or 911 after hours.
• A doe feeds her bunnies in the evening and early morning, but leaves them for large portions of the day.
• If you find a nest of these cute babies resist the temptation to pick them up and take them home, they will likely die if you do.
• Cover the bunnies up with their nest material place two sticks perpendicularly across the nest and come back in 12 hours. If the sticks are undisturbed call a rehabilitator. Otherwise the mother has come and gone and is caring for her young.
• Bunnies with their ears up and eyes open that are 4-5 inches long are old enough to be on their own.

Deer Crossings

• Fall is a time of transition and preparation. Not only do the leaves change color, but the animals change in many ways. Many babies are born in the fall including squirrels, opossum, and many species of turtles, lizards and snakes. Fawns are now starting to age out of their spots, and the birds are all restless in preparation for migration. Harvest time is also the wild animals time to fill the larder for leaner winter times or to fatten up for migration or hibernation. As daylight shortens a less obvious change occurs. Animals that move at dusk are crossing roads closer and closer to rush hour. This means you are more likely to collide with a deer.
• As soon as you see a deer on the side of the road or in the road do two things: put your foot on the brake and your hand on the horn.
• The result is both you and the deer have more time to react to a very dangerous situation.

Wildife as Pets

Recent news coverage of fatal bear attacks and tiger maulings or tigers in apartments brings to mind an issue confronted daily at the Piedmont Wildlife Center – the dangers of wildlife as pets. Domestication takes generations of breeding and careful selection. Much suffering results when wild animals are kept as pets. Most animals are incredibly cute and harmless as babies. However, as wild animals mature, their wild nature becomes more evident. What once was a friendly, fun and interesting “pet”, turns into a caged, isolated, and often dangerous social outcast. The tragedy is that these animals cannot be returned to the wild. They typically don’t survive if let go. Having missed critical socialization and training gained from others of their species in the wild, they are pariahs when released in another animal’s territory. In short, wildlife make better neighbors than pets.

Wildlife and Rabies

• Rabies is a preventable fatal disease spread by the bite of an infected animal. All mammals are susceptible to the rabies virus but some are more likely to carry it than others. Though once donned “mad dog disease”, currently twice as many cats are diagnosed with rabies as dogs. In our area the most likely wildlife to be diagnosed with rabies is the raccoon, then bats, skunks and fox. In contrast, opossum are almost never diagnosed with the disease. Bats can bite without drawing blood and still transmit rabies.
• If bitten by a rabid animal a simple set of shots from your doctor will prevent you from getting this disease.
• Keep your pets vaccinated and indoors or leashed. If a vaccinated pet is bitten by an animal you suspect has rabies get them a booster shot immediately.

Squirrels are wild animals too!

Fall is rapidly approaching and with it comes hurricane season, school and, baby squirrels. Yes, squirrels - they have two baby seasons a year. One in the early spring and one in late summer/early fall. Born hairless, in flimsy nests of leaves and branches 25 feet up or more, their eyes don’t open until about 5 weeks of age. They start to wander from the nest shortly after their eyes open, and they are weaned by two months of age. By 10 weeks they are frolicking lithely through the limbs.

These bird feeder bandits are not everyone’s favorite neighbor. An interesting fact to keep in mind is that these foragers feed heavily on nuts and in the fall they dig individual holes to bury each nut or acorn. If times become difficult, and their memory serves them well, they dig the food up. If they lose track of the acorn the result is a healthy sprouted oak tree in the spring.

Frequently storms will blow through and blow squirrel nests out of their trees. This is where people often get involved. Though usually in their nest at this time of life, if dropped to the ground they are often picked up by dogs, cats, children, or concerned citizens. Baby squirrels from birth to about 8 weeks of age are trusting of people.

Newborn squirrels are irresistibly cute and generally don’t bite. Unfortunately, if taken away from their mother at this time of life, they usually do not survive. Here is what the Piedmont Wildlife Center recommends you to do if you cut down a tree with a nest of squirrels in it or if you find baby squirrels blown from their nest:

1. check to make sure the babies have no bruises or broken bones;
2. place a hot water bottle underneath clean, unshredded cloth in the bottom of a box;
3. make sure they are warm enough;
4. do not attempt to feed or water the babies, mother will take care of that soon;
5. make sure dogs and cats are not loose in the immediate vicinity
6. place the box near the tree and get away from the area for 2 hours;
7. come back to check on the babies or observe with binoculars;
8. the mother will build a new nest in about 2 hours and will then come to reclaim her young. She will actually carry her young one at a time back up a tree to their new home. It is an impressive feat to observe.

Squirrels are protected by state law and are wild animals. They do not make good pets.

• The Eastern Gray Squirrel and the Southern Flying Squirrel both live in our area. Grey squirrels are active during the day while flying squirrels are nocturnal. Though they don’t share hours of activity and the gray is 10 times larger than the flyer, they both nest in trees, in cavities or poorly built nests in branches.
• both have two breeding seasons a year young are born in early spring and early fall.
• They are often found after a storm or windy day blown from their nest, or when their tree has been cut down.
• Given a chance the mother will build a new nest and carry her young up the tree to the new nest
• If the young have their eyes closed and are warm and dry and protected from predators give the mother a chance to repair a home and reclaim her young before attempting a rescue. If you are worried about the health of the young call the Piedmont Wildlife Center at 572-9453.