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Animal Emergency Hotline:

707-526-9453

Office: 707-992-0274

Exclusion: 707-992-0276

Location:
403 Mecham Rd,

Petaluma, CA 94952

Mailing Address:
PO Box 448,
Cotati, CA 94931

Community Support Opportunity

Calling all Community Cards!

If you are registered with Oliver's Community Card program, and select us as a beneficiary, we receive 3 % of your purchase amount. It's free to you! All you need to do is present your card when you check out. With baby season right around the corner, every little bit helps!

IN BRIEF

Wildlife Tours: October-April at 2 pm

Wildlife Exclusion Service: Need help with humane evictions?

A MESSAGE FROM DORIS

Would you like to help us this baby season?

This is the time of year when many wildlife species are having babies and trying to provide for their young. You may come across wildlife babies yourself and be confronted with an important decision to be made. Here is what you can do to help us:

Check for nests.

Before trimming trees or mowing the yard, perform a thorough check for any nests that might be in the area.
Squirrels nest in tree cavities or dreys (balls of leaves in trees), and their first nesting season runs from mid-February through April. Postpone tree-trimming until young squirrels have left the nest, about 10-12 weeks.
Rabbits nest in shallow depressions in the ground; their nests are sometimes found when mowing lawns and fields. Young rabbits grow up quickly and will leave their nests within three weeks. In the meantime, mow around the nest, providing a few feet of safety.

Keep cats indoors!

Keeping cats indoors year-round is always the best option, for both wildlife and cats. Cats kill millions of birds and other small animals each year and can be particularly harmful to young wildlife. For more information, including resources on how to help your cat adjust to an indoor-only lifestyle, please visit the American Bird Conservancy's Cats Indoors Program:

Free Roaming Cats: A Conservation Crisis

Ask: 'Is this animal truly orphaned?'

Many times, young wild animals are found alone, leading would-be human rescuers to believe that these young animals have been orphaned or abandoned. Some animals don't require constant parental supervision or many feedings a day. Baby rabbits and young deer fawns, for example, are left alone during the day.
In other cases, a young animal may have been separated from its parents or mother, and just needs assistance with reuniting. If you're unsure if the young animal you found truly needs assistance, please call our Wildlife Hotline at 707-526-9453. We urge you to ask questions FIRST, before handling an animal.
Fight the urge to feed. If you do find a truly orphaned or injured young animal, please don't feed it. Wild animals have special diets, each unique to their species. Feeding food that humans eat - for example, cow's milk-can cause serious problems in wildlife.

If you think this message would be valuable to your friends, please post it to your Facebook account. The more we spread this information during baby season, the more we will be helping our wildlife. Education now saves lives and dollars later.

*Thanks to the Wildlife Center of Virginia for sharing this article with us*

Gratefully Yours,

Doris Duncan, Executive Director

Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue
Registered 501(c)(3) Non Profit.

Lost and Found

We had a surprising patient this month. A family found a hawk acting oddly near their chicken coop, and brought him in. When we opened the box we quickly realized this was no hawk we had ever seen before. It turned out to be a Harris Hawk, whose usual range is in northern Mexico. Another peculiar thing about this bird was the brass band on his leg, quite unlike the ones used for scientific bird banding. We remembered that we'd received a call two weeks earlier from a falconer whose bird had gone astray. We found his phone number, the band number matched, and so we returned the bird to his grateful owner.

Tragedy

We try to keep this newsletter light, but it is important to be aware of some critical issues affecting wildlife. We had an unfortunate call about a coyote hanging in a fence. It was not caught in the fence, but a snare, and had expired from its injuries prior to our arrival. Wire snares can catch around the waist of a coyote and crush them to death. This is inhumane, and alternate methods of exclusion must be learned. Coyotes are critical predators for the health of our local ecosystems. While they can eat livestock, use of deterrents such as predator scent, proper exclusion techniques, and use of guardian dogs can greatly reduce or eliminate the losses from coyotes. Remind your neighbors who may be unaware of alternatives to snaring, that snares are not the answer.

An Uncommon Encounter

This month we admitted a Western Screech owl with an unusual story. The finders awoke to find this little owl perched on their dresser. Though they suspected their cats had brought him inside, when examined, we found no evidence for this. Other than seeming dazed, he appeared to be fine. Once he gains some weight, we hope to release him. With luck, he'll steer clear of dressers in the future.