Good people, with good intentions, sentence animals to death every day with improper care. It’s terrible not just because the animals suffer, but because their well-meaning caregivers suffer, too.
Rehabilitating wildlife properly takes more than just love and dedication, and more than you can learn from a weekend crash-course on Google. To actually thrive on the wild, an animal needs large pre-release enclosures and survival training. It needs to imprint on other animals of its own kind, to learn what it is. It needs a healthy amount of fear— or at least indifference— toward humans. It needs to know how to forage for wild foods. It needs proper veterinary care. These things don’t become possible simply because you have the will and the passion to save the animal yourself.
With improper care, many wild animals become irreversibly tame and dependent, or develop painful bone deformities or blindness from malnutrition. Some will be content as pets until puberty, and will then become destructive and aggressive toward their handlers. Some will even spread serious diseases like raccoon roundworm and even rabies to their owners (or their owners’ pets).
If you have a passion for rescuing wildlife, please look into volunteering with a wildlife rehabilitation facility in your area. This is the first step toward getting the training and education you’ll need to care for orphaned and injured animals, and it ensures that more experienced people with proper facilities can oversee your work until you’re prepared to do it alone.
It’s great if you find a wild animal you want to help. Please don’t let your desire to help cause more harm than good.
For Fox Sake Wildlife Rescue 