New Wild Review v6e3 Taking it Squirrel by Squirrel with Napa Wildlife Center’s Linnaea Furlong.

Join us on New Wild Review for a conversation with Napa Wildlife Rescue’s Director of Animal Care and Operations, Linnaea Furlong. (please check out the awesome work of Napa Wildlife Rescue)

A recent social media post by Linnaea struck a chord with New Wild Review. She wrote:

“It’s surreal, watching all the systems breaking from above in the world, and wondering how it’s going to turn out, but at the same time, now I need to feed baby squirrels, now I need to bathe the raccoon child with mange, now I need to put worms in the glowing orange gapes of phoebes, now I need to train the new hotline person. Things are falling apart and staying the same at once and I am just taking it squirrel by squirrel.”

In our conversation, we talk about what it means to provide care across boundaries during chaotic and dangerous times.

Your support for Bird Ally X, and all of our projects, from Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, to our Botulism Response Team to this podcast, is deeply appreciated. It’s your generosity that makes it all happen. We need you now very much. Please donate if you can.

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When the Tower Falls and Your Nest is Lost

On Friday a private water tower in Fort Dick, north of Crescent City, close to the Oregon State Line, collapsed unexpectedly. Unfortunately it was the nest site for a pair of Barn Owls (Tyto furcata). The property owner found of the owlet nestlings alive, buried in the debris. They called Humboldt Wildlife Care Center to find out what could be done.

With help from our volunteer transport team, we brought the babies 90 miles south to our facility on Humboldt Bay admitting them on Saturday morning.

Three Barn Owl nestlings in our incubator – a remarkable size difference between them!
The largest of the three Barn Owl nestlings sleeps peacefully.

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Considering their mishap, three of the babies are in surprisingly good shape, although the other three of their siblings didn’t survive.

There is a chance that we can build a nest box and return them to their parents, and the options for that are still being explored. If we can’t, then our raptor aviary currently under construction may have these three young raptors as its first patients.

Regardless, it’s your support that makes their second chance possible. Thank you for donating to their care. It takes a lot of mice and rats for these youngsters to become free and wild adults!

If you can, please donate here:

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The First Babies of 2025!

On the second of April, right after we opened, we admitted the first wild orphans of 2025. A student walking to school in Weott found an Opossum who had been hit by a car. In her pouch they found six tiny babies, eyes still closed, who were alive. They took the babies and wrapped them in a sweater and kept them warm. Until the babies could be brought to our clinic in Manila.

They’re doing well now, hydrated and becoming accustomed to a replacement milk. Thanks to this resourceful young person, these six babies have an excellent chance of getting a second chance at wild freedom.

These are the first six of several hundred wild orphans that Humboldt Wildlife Care Center will admit this season. we could really use your support. Without the donations of our human neighbors we would never be able to provide quality care for our wild neighbors. Please help! Thank you!!

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2024: One heck of a year!

A lot happened in 2024. We treated 1,577 patients! We answered thousands of phone calls! We gave hundreds of second chances to our wild neighbors.

And it was with your help, your support, your generosity, that we could do any of it.

Thank you for making our second busiest year of all time a successful year. And please, if you can, support us going in to the future. Who knows what the new year will bring, but with your support, we’ll be ready!

Happy New Year!!!


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In your mailbox soon!

Our annual holiday card! Just mailed out today! You’re support is so important to us – you make everything possible! Thank for another beuatiful year caring for our region’s orphaned and injured wild animals. It’s been a good one. It’s been a tough one. Please help if you can.

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The baby season that began 3 weeks early.

It was the evening of March 31 that we were having a class on hatchling and nestling care for our staff and volunteers. Part of the material in the class was the approximate dates that we tend to start admitting certain species. Roughly, we had until the last few days of April, most years, before Mallard ducklings would begin to emerge. Nestling and fledgling songbirds start coming in about two weeks later.

As an aside to that, we talked about things that we would prioritize to complete in the next few weeks in preparation for the season before all of our time would be taken up by patient care.

The season had other plans. Three days later, April 2, our first hatchling ducks started to come in.

I often tell staff that the two gods I pray to are Necessity and Dumb Luck. I love them both. Necessity tells me what’s next and Dumb Luck helps make it happen sometimes, maybe, you can hope. Necessity said next up is a duckling pond for baby ducks old enough to be housed outside but who still need the heat support that would have been provided by their mother. Necessity also gave us a week to build it.

The part needed that isn’t Necessity or Dumb Luck is no god. That’s where each of us comes in. Elbow grease. Commitment. Community support. By the end of April we finished putting up a waterfowl aviary and adjacent smaller duckling pond, our first since moving to Manila in March of 2023. Maybe what I mean by Dumb Luck is the aspect of our work that requires us to believe that what is necessary will be done, because it must be done. In hindsight, after the accomplishment, one feels enormous gratitude, and also very lucky.

As it happened, the season just got busier and busier from April 2 on – by the end of the week, were getting very tiny Virginia Opossum babies whose mothers had been killed by cars or dogs. By April 11 we had tiny raccoon babies, who had been taken from their mother when their den was uprooted during some “brush removal” in Del Norte County, 80 miles north of us. With neonatal mammals, the feedings are as close to around the clock as we can manage – an inescapable part of parenting, as every parent knows – that we recreate as best as we are able.

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So here we are, just past the midway point of the Season of wild orphans – we’ve been working 14 hour days for more than three months now. We still have about two months to go. The fact that we’ve even made it his far is in every way because of your support. Support that stays critical. We still have so much more to come this Season, and we still have a lot to complete to bring our facility back to its proper capacity. Your help is going to keep being needed, hopefully forever. If you can please donate to keep our season going, our doors open, our utilities paid, our food delivered, our medicines covered – our needs met. We do a lot on a little – we can do even more on more. Thank you!!!

Please take a look at our slide show of photographs from what so far has been, it cannot be denied, a WILD WILD BABY SEASON.

We really need your help to keep going this Summer. We still have 2 months or more left of the Season and several hundred animals to admit. Please help us help our wild neighbiors in need! Thank you so much!!!!

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An Eagle Scout in the Making Makes a Huge Difference for HWCC’s Wild Patients!

(Manila) – A young man is a step closer to earning his Eagle Scout badge after raising $1,400 for Humboldt WIldlife Care Center!

The young man, Quentin Chase (17) worked with McKinleyville Ace to support the only wildlife hospital on the North Coast with hot dog sales on three Sundays of the Summer, with the proceeds to benefit our clinic!

McKinleyville Ace Hardware provided the space for this fundraiser put together by Eagle Scout candidate Quentin Chase! McKinleyville has helped HWCC before with wildlife rescues!
Eagle Scout candidate Quentin Chase and Bird Ally X co-founder, Laura Corsiglia at the booth for HWCC at McKinleyville Ace Hardware.

When asked why he chose HWCC as the beneficiary of his effort, Quentin said, “I was thinking of the wild animals that get injured yearly and thought the money would go for a good cause.” giving up three Sundays in the Summer to sell hot dogs at the local Ace Hardware definitely requires commitment, but QUentin did much more than that! For those hours on those Sundays Quentin was representative of the idea that our wild neighbors in need deserve a place to receive treatment. And he not only advocated for our wild neighbors, but he accomplished palpable results! Beside his time tabling for HWCC and selling hot dogs, Quentin also put in some hard work helping to get our Racoon patient housing at our new facility finished!

“My favorite part was doing the work to get to the end,” Quentin said, “like raising the money and building some of the cage.”

Quentin said, “It’s rewarding to make something happen to give to someone else. I’m especially glad that the raccoons will have a chance of survival in the wild when they are released.”

Quentin Chase presents HWCC/bax director with checks for $1400 from donations raised, plus hot dog sales!
An orphaned Raccoon raised at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center a few moments after being released back into the wild.

For the future, Quentin said, “I hope that there is more wilderness, and wild animals will return safely over time to regrow the animal populations.”  

For us at HWCC, Quentin’s hard work, compassion and generosity meant a signicant boost in a challenging time! His contribution helped us make significant progress rebuilding our facility after needing to re-locate. When asked what the experience meant to him, Quentin said, “I learned that it means a lot to others when you give up time out of your day to help others in need.” Characteristic of this thoughtful young man, he added, “Thank you for helping me go through this whole project, and thank you to the crew that help wildlife in need.”

Love for the wild is as natural as getting born. Turning into a fine young person ready to chip in and help takes some commitment. Knowing that our young people are ready to join us oldsters and take up the challenge of building a beautiful future while we help restore the damage our society has caused the Wild is a more important gift than proceeds and a day’s labor, important though they are! We really thank Quentin Chase for his commitment and follow-

through and very real contribution that made a big difference for the wild patients of our region. We’re glad to know that Quentin’s generation is coming, and they are ready to work!

If you want to follow this young man’s committed and generous example, please do so!! You can donate today to help wild animals in care today, tomorrow and sustainably into the future.

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New Raccoon Housing Coming Soon with Your Help!

We’ve started building our raccoon housing at our new site, but it’s Summer and our resources are thin! We need your help! Please donate to help us develop our new facility and keep our patients fed – we have nearly 75 orphans in care! Thank you for keeping our doors open and always striving to improve!!!!

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