Life on the Wild Side

29 Replies

It’s been awhile since I’ve shared an update about the goings-on where I work.  For those who are new to my blog and are not aware, I work at a wildlife rescue and rehab center where we take care of orphaned and injured wildlife, with the hopes of ultimately releasing the animals back into the wild.

It has been a crazy year.  We are close to hitting 2000 admits already, and we still have 2 more months to go.  Of course, a thousand of those admits were squirrels in September… okay, kidding. I’m just kidding!  We only had a couple hundred squirrels come to us this year, not a thousand.  (I tried to keep a running count on squirrel admits last year during squirrel apocalypse, otherwise known as September, and eventually had to give up as I started to lose track).  September is just a really bad month for squirrels.

Me with a baby squirrel

There are some physical changes happening at the center.  We have been working with a new nonprofit who rescues marine mammals. They needed a site to build pools for rehabilitation, so we’re in the midst of clearing land on the center’s property to make room for the pools in the hopes that their rescue will take off.  Living near the Puget Sound, we are in desperate need of marine mammal rescues.  Too many seals are left to die on the beach.

And of course, I still get my share of assholes who call (sorry… there is no other way to describe them).  Just yesterday I was yelled at by a man who couldn’t get a hummingbird out of his garage.  I informed him I wasn’t a government agency nor associated with the police (who, rightly so, couldn’t help him), so there was no reason for him to yell at me.  I suggested he go buy a net if all other efforts of directing the hummingbird outside failed.  He said, “Why the f—- would I go buy a f—ing net when I’m never going to use the f—ing thing again!  I’ll just let the bird die right here in my garage!”  See… asshole.  He was trying to emotionally manipulate me, which I do not tolerate.  Long story short, 20 minutes later he did manage to get the hummingbird out of his garage without having to buy a net.  For the animals, my friends… I do it for the animals.

Me with an injured red-tailed hawk

We have our holiday merchandise in and I plan to do another giveaway this year. The patient of the year (hence, the holiday ornament) is an adorable little porcupine who had to stay with us last year over winter when he was separated from his mother after a dog attack.  Stay tuned right here for details coming soon.

“If you talk to the animals, they will talk to you, and you will know each other.

If you do not talk to them, you will not know them.  And what you do not know, you will fear.

What one fears, one destroys.” — Chief Dan George

29 thoughts on “Life on the Wild Side”

    1. Paula Post author

      Haha, I look fearful because my child came back with no candy on Halloween, can you believe that. No free candy for me this year, lol.

      We have our own opinion on why the Eastern Gray squirrels have such a hard time in September. The Eastern Gray’s have babies twice a year, once in winter, once in summer. It’s the summer babies that are always getting chucked out of nests by mom, or the mom abandons them, hence our heavy patient load (and good-hearted people come across these babies and bring them to us). Our opinion is that the summer babies were actually set up by nature, as cruel as this sounds, to be food for the newly fledged, juvenile raptors that are learning to hunt. The squirrels are easy fodder for these new raptors. It’s just a theory, but you never know, it kind of makes sense as we don’t see it happen with the winter babies. It’s either that, or mom just doesn’t want to be a mom in the summer, 😀

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      1. Dippy-Dotty Girl

        Ahahaha you are hilarious. No candy on Halloween 😀 My grown-up neighbours, two gays boys, told me they went trick-or-treating! I was a bit lost for words.

        My heart goes out to those poor baby squirrels born in summer then. I have been seeing a fair bit of those tiny ones jumping around a few days ago in the park. Curious fact but yes nature has its own cycle is it not? However cruel or unfair it might seem to us. The world belongs to the predators unfortunately.

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    1. Paula Post author

      Yes, it can be terribly heartbreaking. Quite a few of our patients are injured because of humans, and that’s what is so disturbing (shot, hit by car, electric fence, poison, displacement from construction). But yes, when they’re finally released, extremely rewarding! 🙂

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    1. Paula Post author

      Hahaha, you would probably get some great shots of the little bird if it were in your garage! Have you been able to take a picture of a hawk moth? You really do have some of the most gorgeous butterflies where you live! We don’t seem to have your variety here, 😀

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      1. Alittlebitoutoffocus

        I captured a Humming bitd Hawkmoth a few weeks ago, flitting about the flowers on our balcony. But I’ve posted a picture before, outside the Hotel Veisivi in Les Haudères, after I’d been on a walk. See here: https://alittlebitoutoffocus.com/2015/08/25/alpage-detoile-walk-17/#jp-carousel-830
        They are quite fearless and dart from flower to flower, almost oblivious of me waving a camera 2 oe 3 inches away. The problem is getting them when they are relatively still so that they are (more or less) in focus. 🙂

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  4. Jenna

    That’s so cool! Well minus the assholes… I actually went to school for wildlife management and wanted to do that kind of work. I ended up doing something completely different but I have so much respect for you and others who work so hard to make our world a better place for the animals!

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    1. Paula Post author

      That is so sweet of you to say, Jenna, thank you! And I hope you’re enjoying what you do just as much as if you were working with animals!

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  5. CJ

    Oh Paula, what a FAB post! You guys who look after animals are true angels… I couldn’t do it, i would have a menagerie at home and my heart would be broken into tiny bit every day. So i truly love you guys who do it! Thank you!
    As for that F****r with the hummingbird…. I hope it sh*t all over his prized car!!! No, actually… in his BEER! tw@t! Ugh, some people!
    Paula you are my heroine!

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    1. Paula Post author

      Thank you CJ! xx And yes, I run into idiots like that all the time, unfortunately. They get so mad that I can’t problem solve their life for them and they get quite threatening and verbally abusive. I’ve hung up on my share of these people as well… usually just before I blow and bring it back to them, lol.

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  6. runningtotravel

    OMG! We just had a hummingbird get stuck in our garage not too long ago. The crazy thing wouldn’t fly out despite opening the garage door and the door leading into the back yard. We tried using a broom and all kinds of things then I finally had the idea to use one of our daughter’s old butterfly nets. That worked great! I really thought the poor thing was going to die at one point. I took some pictures but they didn’t turn out. It was moving around too fast I guess. That same day I found a beautiful turtle in our back yard. I told my husband it was wild kingdom at our house that day! lol.

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    1. Paula Post author

      Hahaha… wild kingdom, that’s great! And good job figuring out how to get him out of your garage! It really is common sense, isn’t it, but some people just don’t have any, ;D

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  7. Janet wilson

    Hi I really enjoyed our visit to your sacturary on my last visit & remember one of the staff feeding a tiny hummingbird and the other animals. Great work. Jx

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  8. lynne hoareau

    My heart goes out to you and all the wonderful dedicated people out there taking care of all the animals. It must be heart wrenching at times, but with some good moments too. I always feel so sorry for all the innocent animals out there….and all the dangers …..

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  10. Chocolaterunsjudy

    What a wonderful quote! And yes, what an asshole.

    God, a bird in the garage? That’s nothing. Birds flying through the house. Baby snakes. A toad. Chipmunks (I swear God’s stupidest creatures). A baby rabbit. Those have all been in our house at one time or another.

    I finally wised up & don’t let Giz out until after dawn anymore . . . either that’s working or he’s slowed down as he ages cause we haven’t had to deal with any of that the last couple of years.

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    1. Paula Post author

      I’m telling you Judy… I live in Redneck country and there isn’t a real man to be found, I swear. They’re afraid of freaking squirrels, I kid you not. Can’t even contain a little bird… it’s really disgusting.

      In Arizona, I used to wake up with lizards all the time in my bed, so I get the whole animal gift thing. Sheba right now prefers to eat the animals she catches and Meep doesn’t go out, so I don’t have to worry about it much right now thankfully.

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    1. Paula Post author

      Thanks Al! Yes, that guy could’ve definitely handled it on his own, but when it comes to wildlife, it seems most people lose all common sense, lol!

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