AR-News: (US CA) Wildlife belongs in the wild

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

By Barry Eberling

A baby opossum is fed with a syringe by Cindy Forrest, the rehabilition 
director at the Suisun Wildliife Center Monday. (Photo by Judith Sagami) 




SUISUN CITY -- A baby bird, fawn or jackrabbit is all by itself in a field, 
adorable and seemingly abandoned by Mom.

Some people want to help these vulnerable creatures. But often, the best 
thing to do is nothing.
That advice comes from the Wildlife Center.

The Suisun City-based organization cares for orphaned and injured birds and 
animals. Each spring, the center gets flooded with baby creatures that in some 
cases shouldn't be there.



Take baby birds. The center gets hundreds of them annually. Many of them are 
uninjured, found by people who think the birds are orphaned.

But that's not necessarily the case. Sometimes baby birds try to fly and 
tumble to the ground, Wildlife Center Executive Director Monique Liguori said." 
"They've got to get a little flight practice too and it always doesn't go 
perfectly.

People who find a baby bird on the ground can put it back in the nest. Or 
they can put the baby in a tree or bush out of harm's way, where the mother can 
resume feeding it.

Don't worry that the mother will reject babies handled by a human, Liguori 
said.

"Birds have a lousy sense of smell," Liguori said. "The mother's not going to 
go, 'Somebody's touched my baby and I don't want it back.' "


full story:

http://www.dailyrepublic.com/articles/2004/03/23/news/news4.txt 
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