So many animals and birds were being brought to the Acadia Wildlife Center for rescue this summer that it has stopped taking any new animals.
According to a recording on the facility’s phone, Acadia Wildlife staff need time to catch up due to the large number of animal patients currently there. Things are so busy, they’re not even accepting phone or text messages until July 10.
That facility isn’t alone.
Animal rescue and rehabilitation facilities around the state are seeing a spike in the numbers of critters coming in this summer, experts say. But many of those animals did not need to be rescued in the first place and are taking up space and resources needed by those who really do need help.
“Our numbers have been up,” said Scott Lindsay, wildlife biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. “Some [rescues] have been at such high volume that they have close to 100 baby raccoons right now.”
That often means the volunteers running rescue facilities need to scramble to make last minute accommodations for those babies. Or, in cases like Acadia Wildlife Center, temporarily stop accepting the animals altogether.
There are around 25 wild animal and bird rescue or rehabilitation facilities in Maine, according to Lindsay who works closely with all of them. Most, he said, do this on a voluntary basis using their own money and resources. Getting overrun with animals that do not need to be there can really stretch those resources.
For the most part, people’s hearts are in the right place when they interact with wildlife in Maine, Lindsay said. But even with the best of intentions, they can still do more harm than good.
When a baby animal appears to be alone, it does not mean it’s an orphan. Often, it really means the mother has gone off to get food and will be returning to her babies.
There are those times, however, when an animal does legitimately need some help from humans. Unfortunately, humans are often the reason they need help.
“Sometimes a homeowner is live-trapping a raccoon or other mammal that’s been living in a shed or in the attic,” Lindsay said. “Then they relocate that animal far away [but] what they may not realize is that it was a female with a litter of young and they have just separated the mother from her babies.”
In that kind of situation, the young should be brought to a licensed rescue or rehabilitation facility.
“You can’t just dump the babies out in the woods,” Lindsay said. “Those are the ones ending up going where they can be fed and weaned until they are old enough to be released into the wild.”
To avoid that happening, Lindsay recommends contacting a state certified animal damage control agent. These are not state employees, but they are authorized by Maine IF&W to trap animals out of season.
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They can tell if a trapped female has a litter of babies and will take the appropriate steps to humanely trap the entire family so they can all be safely released together.
There is some good news though, according to Lindsay.
For years the state’s five deer rehabilitation facilities were seeing people bringing in fawns assumed to be orphaned. Many of those were actually fine and had been left alone only temporarily while their mother went off to feed.
Outreach and education efforts by DIF&W seem to be paying off this year, according to Lindsay. The numbers of fawns the rehabilitators are seeing this summer are below past years.
There will always be wild animals in Maine in need of rescue, Lindsay said. He just wants to make sure only the ones that really do are taken in. When in doubt, people can contact DIF&W.
“Right now rehabilitators and rescues are getting overwhelmed,” he said. “We want to make sure that when we are taking an animal out of the wild, it’s justified to take it.”
