At Humboldt Wildlife Care Center/bax, we treat well over a thousand orphaned or injured wild animals each year. But we help thousands more without ever getting close to them! Every Spring and Summer day our phone rings dozens of times as people run across wild animals in strange situations. Maybe they are in a conflict with a wild animal who is using their home as a den site, or a nest has been knocked down when limbing a tree.
Many of these problems can be solved on the phone! We’ve helped hundreds of people co-exist with Raccoons by coaching them through convincing a mother Raccoon to den somewhere besides their crawlspace. We’ve assisted hundreds more over the years in getting baby birds back in their nests, or rebuilding their nests if they’ve been unintentionally destroyed.
Solving conflicts over the phone isn’t easy! Often, people who call are very frustrated and a little bit mad at the wild animal trying to use their space. Patience is usually required in order to get through this part of the call. But we always remember: The caller wants our help. They want to do the right thing. That’s why they called us.
And our solutions have to work! There are always those in any community who will leap to the lethal solution. If our program doesn’t get the job done, there is a very good chance that the caller will opt for violence and be forever convinced that humane solutions to conflict aren’t effective.
When you are on the phone with someone who is upset about the actions of a wild animal, and that animal’s life is on the line, the moment can be very stressful. As with all stressful tasks, preparation is critical!
We offer volunteers and staff regular opportunities to sharpen their phone skills with our Phone Workshop, which Bird Ally X developed. Using the details of actual calls, our participants practice helping various callers resolve a conflict or get a wild animal the care they need.
Teaching the next generation of wildlife care providers the skills we’ve all acquired over the decades of practice is an important part of our mission. Operating Humboldt Wildlife Care Center not only provides help for the injured and orphaned wild neighbors of our region, and not only resolves wildlife conflicts peacefully saving perhaps thousands more each year, but our small facility on the edge of Humboldt Bay acts as our lab and ongoing classroom to develop and teach effective ways of caring for our wild neighbors and promoting co-existence with the Wild.
Your support makes this work possible! Thank you! Want to help? Please donate today! DONATE
