By Denise Upton | Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care
Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care receives dozens of calls every day about injured and orphaned birds and animals. Some of these need our help and some definitely do not. The problem is knowing the difference.
The new form of rodent control is not an anticoagulant but a neurotoxin that when eaten by rodents turns them into a toxic time bomb that can be consumed by multiple species up the food chain.
Don’t touch it, call
This is why the first thing you should do before picking up or moving an animal is call Lake Tahoe Wildfire. We can help you figure out if an animal needs help or not. One of the best tools we have is your phone. Take a photo or video of the animal and call us. Lots of times, what you think you’re seeing isn’t what’s happening.
Take fledglings for example. Most birds don’t fly out of the nest; they jump or “fledge.” These are called fledglings. They hop around on the ground for a few days, while parents still feed them, learning how to be a bird. If you pick one up and put it in a box, you interrupt that process and keep the parents from feeding it. If you call us and have a photo, we can help determine if there’s an issue or if you need to simply sit back and enjoy the process.
Injured animals
• Call (530) 577-2273
• Don’t touch an injured animal
• Call Lake Tahoe Wildlife
• Take a photo or video
• Call if you hit an animal & report it
Learn more
Wildlife Wednesdays | 6 p.m.
Call if you hit it
Unfortunately, lots of animals get hit by cars in Tahoe, up to and including bobcats and bears. We’ve had multiple instances this season where people hit an animal and just kept going. If you do hit an animal, call us. We can at least keep track of that animal and be aware that it’s possibly injured and ran off. Accidents happen, but we can at least try to get help for the animal involved if we’re aware of the incident.
Use non-toxic rodent control
Lastly, let’s talk poisons. We receive animals way too frequently that we suspect were poisoned, but testing is expensive so we’re never 100 percent sure. The new form of rodent control is not an anticoagulant but a neurotoxin that when eaten by rodents turns them into a toxic time bomb that can be consumed by multiple species up the food chain.
Just a few of the animals that consume large quantities of rodents are coyotes, bobcats, weasels, pine martens, owls and hawks — all living here at Lake Tahoe. A great website to help with rodent problems is Raptors Are The Solution (RATS). There are great tips on natural rodent control.
Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care is here to help, but we can’t help if you don’t call. If you find a sick or injured bird or animal, let us know so we can work together to determine what it is and if it really does need our help or should be left alone to live wild at Lake Tahoe. | (530) 577-2273, ltwc.org
