What to do With an Injured Animal?
Fall brings darker mornings and earlier evenings, the times favored by animals on the move and those migrating and getting ready for winter. Collisions between vehicles and large mammals like deer are more common now than at any other time of year, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Add more cars on the road with school back in session, and the chances increase exponentially of coming around a bend in the road only to find the tragic scene of an animal injured from a vehicle collision.
Some say it’s not natural to intervene when a wild animal is injured. Our rebuttal: “It’s not natural for an animal to be hit by a car going 70 miles an hour on a road dividing its natural ecosystem.”
--Newhouse Wildlife Rescue
Do you know what to do when you find injured wildlife? First and foremost, it is illegal for any person, other than a state appointed rehabilitator, to care for wildlife. Here are some suggestions to find the appropriate person or organization to care for injured wildlife:
1. Call your local Animal Control Officer, if available, or Police Department for assistance. (If the animal is already deceased, your local Highway Department will pick the animal up from town-maintained roads.)
2. Alternately, contact a local wildlife rehabilitator. If you do not have access to the information, get a directory of wildlife rehabilitators by species and location from the State Dept. of Energy and Environmental Protection.
3. Contact a Wildlife organization:
Wildlife in Crisis, Weston, CT, 203-544-9913 9am-5pm daily
Christine’s Critters (raptors only), Weston, CT , christinescrittersinc@gmail.com,
or phone: (203) 856-5596 (203) 810-7864
Helping Hands for Wildlife, Woodbury, CT, info@helpinghandsforwildlife.org, (203) 759-8362, 24/7
Get a complete list of rehab organizations in CT.
Learn how to become a state-certified wildlife rehabilitator.