Welcome to Statewide Wildlife Rescue
Spring has FINALLY sprung here in the north east. Flowers are coming up, and most of the snows have melted away, hopefully not to return until much later!
This also means people and wildlife will be having far more numerous interactions over the next several months.
This article is intended to help both people who encounter them and wildlife who are either in need of help, or need to be left alone, to be their wild selves.
When an animal needs help:
Determining if an animal is sick or injured, and therefore in need of immediate help, is easy if you look for these signs: is the animal bleeding? Is it limping or dragging a wing or appendage such as a leg or foot? Is it shivering or vomiting? Has it been attacked by a cat, dog, or lawn mower? If the answer is yes to any of these questions, please call a local wildlife rehabilitator, your local vet who can refer you to one, or animal control who can do the same. Rehabbers take in injured and ill wildlife, help them to recover, and release them back to their wild habitat.
Day light sightings are NORMAL for all animals. Even the nocturnal ones like raccoons. During spring the mother are working over time to feed their young and themselves, and it is no easy job! Just because it is out during the day does NOT mean the animal is rabid! Leave her alone. Contain domestic animals and enjoy a rare sighting of nature at work. IF the animal in question is stumbling, turning in circles, limping, bleeding, acting "furious" (unprovoked) if the dog or cat is fussing at it, that is normal and provoked, or an adult animal being REALLY friendly to people.call a rehabber for help. None of that is normal.