This webinar is part of the Virginia Master Naturalist Continuing Education series.
Description: An outdoor B-B-Q in the neighborhood is brought to a halt when someone discovers a baby squirrel fallen out of a nest. Or, you go out to get your newspaper and see a dead opossum lying in the road, but upon walking closer, realize live babies are still attached to the mother. An infant wildlife emergency can happen at any time in spring and summer. You may be able to provide critical initial assessment and best practice care to an animal or lend advice to a neighbor dealing with a situation. Learn what you yourself can do, then teach others who have far less experience with the natural world than MNs. In this webinar we will focus on infant wildlife: cottontails, squirrels, opossums, fawns and baby birds. We’ll cover:
· The most common infant wildlife situations that citizens encounter
· How to tell if a baby is orphaned
· First aid help, and how to do no harm
· Pertinent natural history to guide intervention
· Re-Nesting strategies
· Safety and risks
· Laws pertaining to rescuing wild animals
Come learn how to be a true friend of wildlife when they are in true need!
Presenter: Kate Guenther has been one of the Front Desk Coordinators of the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro, VA for the past 5 years and every year guides people by phone through thousands of emergency and non-emergency situations involving injured and orphaned wildlife. The Wildlife Center was formed in 1982 to provide quality health care to native wildlife. In these 34 yrs. they have treated more than 65,000 wild patients. In addition the Center is a teaching hospital that has trained a corps of wildlife medicine practitioners who may now be found practicing cutting-edge wildlife veterinary medicine around the world, as well as teaching some 1.5 million children and adults to care about and to care for wildlife.
This webinar was presented on 5 May 2016
