Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center

Here’s one of our newest intakes, a cute and vocal baby bobcat! This one was found alone on the road but is in good condition.

Just a baby dove trying to hatch. ❤️

The honey-do lists around my house might be slightly different than most households.  As a matter of fact, one glimpse at some of my recent requests and your family may be eternally grateful for the mundane chores that need to be tended to in your home.  My husband (whom, as I have mentioned before, has the patience of a saint) and daughter (poor thing—grew up this way, has no idea this is not normal) are often conscripted to help.

1. Pick up kale for the rabbits on the way home from work. 2. Do a load of laundry—darks or permanent press, your choice. 3. Do another load of laundry—raccoon cage towels, no choice. 4. Help me find opossum baby that got loose in the house last night.

I’d like to say having a home care animal escape from its cage (or my grasp) is an unusual thing, but I wouldn’t want to lie.  When we had our kitchen remodeled I, gave explicit instructions to the demolition crew to let me know if they found any tiny rodent skeletons under the cabinets when they pulled them out.  Over the years I have had more than one baby mouse or rat jump out of my hands while I was trying to feed or clean it.

There is a stage of development in the life of a baby rodent when they are called “hoppers”.  There is a very good reason for this.  Any perception of threat is met with a reflexive leap that can result in the baby escaping from a gently cupped hand and landing with a thump, followed by a scamper, and ultimately a dive under the nearest cabinet, dresser, or appliance.

I am happy to report there were no skeletons found in my closet (or anywhere else) during the kitchen remodel.  Apparently all of my escapees were able to get out of the house and live a long and happy life in the wild.  Or get eaten by a hawk.  Best not to know.  I did get a few strange looks from the construction crew when I repeatedly asked them to plug every gap wider than 1/4 inch.

So, exactly why is my house crawling with rats, raccoons, rabbits, and opossums?  It’s not that I need the number to a good exterminator.  I already have that.  Peace River Wildlife Center works with several trappers that take the time to educate people and do the right thing for the animals when they get calls from frantic people who don’t know what to do with a wild animal in their attic or close to their home.  Many trappers live up to the name “exterminator,” but a select few do everything they can to help not only the people involved, but the animals too.  They even come in to clean up other trappers’ messes when the latter has removed a mother from an attic but left the babies behind.

The reason I have as many critters around the house as Elly May Clampett is that the orphaned and misplaced baby mammals that are admitted to PRWC need to be fed every few hours, 24 hours a day.  So the rehabbers and a select few volunteers take them home until the babies are weaned and able to go overnight without being bottle-fed.  Then the older juveniles are transferred back to PRWC to acclimate to outdoor life and await release.

Home care takes a serious commitment, but is one of the most rewarding aspects of wildlife rehabilitation.  Classes are forming now for anyone who thinks they may have the time and aptitude for baby mammal home care.  Call Tammy in the PRWC office (941-637-3830) for details and to schedule, and you too can have the pitter patter of tiny paws scampering through your home.  Or you could keep them in their cages, where they belong.

The most recently missing opossum in my house was found the next morning by my daughter and was placed back in the cage with its foster siblings.  She (the opossum, not my daughter) was found clinging to the faux fur collar of a cloak in the guest bedroom closet where we store my husband’s guns and dresses.  But that is the subject of an entirely different column.

This Young raccoon here likes his Chef Boyardee a little too much!  Thanks to an observant person and Charlotte County, Florida Animal Control officers, he was found wandering with a can on his head, rescued and brought to us for care. After being freed of the can, he got the all clear to go home today. It takes us all to help wildlife. 

A kind Port Charlotte citizen found this distressed raccoon in her backyard this morning with his head stuck in a ravioli can. AC Officer Enriquez transported the juvenile raccoon to Peace River Wildlife Center for assistance. The animal needed to be sedated while the can was carefully clipped away until it could be pulled off. The critter appears to have only minor injuries and is expected to be ok. Thanks PRWC!

How you can help: Crush all cans and properly dispose of trash in the appropriate trash or recycle bin. Rinse all cans and jars before throwing them away to reduce the chance of tempting a wild animal with the food smells. Secure the lids of your trash and recycle bins if animals are getting into them.

Your purchase will help SAVE a ‘Wild” Life!  All sales go directly to the care of our wildlife patients and residents at PRWC. Thank you!

PRWC Branded T-Shirt Plush Critters. Adorable plush critters are irresistibly soft and fashionably decked out in lime-green PRWC logo t-shirts, featuring a squirrel (P), owl (R), fox (W) and tortoise(C) that call attention to our mission: Rescue, Rehabilitate, Educate. With their dark plastic eyes and sweet expressions, kids will want all five lovable styles: alligator, eagle, frog, owl, shark. 5 ½”H.

Did you know baby squirrels often wag their tails when nursing? Start off your week with something super cute! 

A modern day fairly tale.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:  A frog leaps up and snatches a hummingbird in mid-air.  Anyone?  While it does evoke an amusing image, it’s not a joke.  It actually happened recently, according to Lance Simmons, the guy who brought the harassed hummingbird to Peace River Wildlife Center.  He swears he was sober at the time he witnessed the assault (but he is a City of Punta Gorda employee, so we wouldn’t hold it against him if he wasn’t.)

Last year PRWC admitted 2,443 patients.  Of those, there were 113 different avian species.  Many of them were the same or similar types of birds, eating pretty much the same types of foods and requiring similar habitats.  Occasionally though, we get an outlier.

Earlier this year we had a hatchling limpkin.  That species feeds primarily on apple snails.  It is hard enough to wean any baby bird from a hand-feeding formula to self-feeding, but it is almost impossible when their diet is so restricted.

To have the best shot at keeping this kiddo alive, I found myself mucking about in roadside drainage ditches, pealing snails off rocks and plopping them into a bucket.  Luckily for me, I had noticed the snails on earlier walks near the area.  What caught my attention was the rough pink masses on numerous reeds growing out of the water.

I had no idea what they were, so I did what any computer illiterate person would do.  I texted a picture to the one person I know who knows everything, and he didn’t let me down.  Within minutes Capt. Josh, our esteemed WaterLine editor, informed me that the pink biomass was an egg cluster from the highly invasive channeled apple snail.

Filing that information away, I went on about my walks and work at PRWC.  Amazingly enough, a few months later when we got the limpkin in and we needed snails to feed it, I remembered just where I could find an abundant supply.  And since these are an invasive species, I didn’t feel bad about harvesting them.

My only concern was whether the native birds would eat this cousin of the indigenous apple snails we have in Florida.  That query was answered when I got to the swale and had to fight off a mixed flock of egrets and herons to get to the few remaining intact snail shells.

Fast forward to a few days ago when the hummingbird arrived.  We don’t get hummers as patients very often.  This may be only the second or third one I’ve seen in the 14 years I’ve been at PRWC, so we didn’t have the needed supplies on hand to feed and care for the little guy.  The feeder and nectar we used to have had been tossed after years of sitting on a shelf had turned them brittle, dried-up, and unusable.

We do have some awesome contacts around the state and country with other rehabbers who see and treat this species more frequently than we do.  Since we didn’t have hummingbird nectar, they recommended we use sugar water as an emergency ration.  Trouble was, we didn’t have sugar either.  We have Karo syrup and agave, but we were told these are not acceptable substitutions.  “Borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor,” was the helpful suggestion.  What are we, in an episode of Bewitched?

Since don’t have a Mrs. Kravitz to borrow household staples from, someone had to make a store run.  The rehabbers were busy taking care of our patients.  The receptionist was answering the phones that never stop ringing.  I was trying to get caught up on the never-ending paperwork and check on the more critical patients.  But this hummingbird was going to fall into that critical category if we didn’t get him some sustenance soon.

As I was running out to my car, a couple were making their way across the parking lot toward the entrance to PRWC.  They asked what we needed.  Assuming it was a casual conversation starter, I gave them the short list of items we always need:  Paper towels, laundry soap, bleach, fresh greens, fruits, and vegetables.  Then I jokingly mentioned what we really needed right now was hummingbird nectar and a feeder.

I was amazed when this wonderful couple turned around and headed out to the store to purchase exactly what we needed right then and there.  Kathy and Allen Feister bought us the perfect hummingbird feeder and undyed nectar that we needed for this patient.  (And probably for the next 20 years, we see so few of them.)  They also bought us everything else I had mentioned and a few other items I had forgotten, but they knew we would need:  Dawn dish soap, kitchen gloves, and cat food.

The hummingbird is recovering from her odd encounter with the frog.  Maybe she was disappointed that he didn’t turn into a prince, but her prince turned out to be Mr. Simmons when he saved her life by rescuing her.  And her fairy god parents, Mr. and Mrs. Feister, did their bit to help us keep her alive.  Now only time will tell if she can stay strong enough to get to the happily-ever-after release back into the wild.

by- Robin Jenkins, DVM

Check out the cutest thing you’ll see this week—two gopher tortoises hatching out!

A couple weeks ago the apron of a tortoise burrow was damaged during construction and disturbed two tortoise eggs and two hatchlings. The hatchlings did not survive but we set up the eggs to finish incubation. We were unsure if they were still viable after all that. Well...Monday evening we saw the first one pipping!! By Tuesday evening the first one was hatched and the second was pipping! Both are doing well this am.