WildCare Foundation Seeing Increase In Animals Stranded In Storms

This week's storms have not displaced many of us from our homes but it has been a very different story for animals in the wild.

WildCare Foundation is seeing an increase of critters coming in for help, and most of them were just born. The organization is taking care of more than 100 baby squirrels alone.

Volunteers are working around the clock to nurse the meekest of Mother Nature's creatures. They just keep coming, as this is the second litter season of the year.

Emily Schuermann rescued a baby cardinal from her yard in Norman.

“The nest was destroyed three days ago, but there was a nearby nest, and the mom and dad have just been hovering around it. And then there was no sign of them today,” Schuermann said.

In weather like this, many wild animals are helpless.

“They have no way of watching the news to know whether they should get out of the weather or not, and they don’t have a place to go regardless, so they just have to hunker down and endure,” WildCare Foundation founder Rondi Large said. 

If you come across a stranded animal, Large advised you to handle them with leather gloves, and keep them in a dark, warm place without feeding them until help arrives. That is how one group of baby woodpeckers got to the organization’s facility.

“We tried to put it back in what was remaining of the nest to have the parents continue to raise them,” Large said. “That sometimes works, but for some reason, that didn’t work with this little group.”

Not all the animals they are seeing come from trees, though. Many burrowers are being forced above ground, too.

“Just because you see a wild animal out in a time of day that he’s not normally out, it doesn’t mean that he’s sick or rabid," Large said. "It could just mean that his house is flooded, and he doesn’t have a dry place to sleep.”

As for the baby cardinal, he is already showing signs of strength.

“I think he needed to be here,” a worker told Schuermann. “You made the right decision.”

With the influx of animals, WildCare’s biggest needs right now are cleaning supplies like dish soap and laundry detergent, money for special mother’s milk and volunteers.