How to Help an Injured Wild Bird Catherine Greenleaf
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t’s often hard to know what to do when you find an injured wild bird. But don’t panic. The following tips will help you figure it all out: When you find an injured bird, the first and most important thing to do is remove the bird and get it to a safe place. Remember the acronym D.W.Q., which stands for dark, warm and quiet. Put on some leather work gloves or gardening gloves, bring the bird indoors and place it in a cardboard box on a soft towel and keep it in a quiet room. Birds stress out very easily but keeping the bird in a dark box where it cannot see out will help keep it calm. Please do not give the bird food or water, since it may have internal injuries and ingesting anything could cause the bird to die. When a bird is injured, it is a true emergency and time is of the essence. The next step is to call your wildlife rehabilitator. You can find out who that is by going to w w w.wildlife. state.nh.us/wildlife/rehabilitators. html if you live in New Hampshire or www.vtfishandwildlife.com (type in the search words ‘wildlife rehabilitators’) if you live in Vermont. Some wildlife rehabilitators may ask you to drive the bird to their facility or others may send volunteers to pick up the bird or meet you half way. The sooner you get the bird to a wildlife rehabilitator, the better its chances of survival. When transporting the bird to a wildlife rehabilitator, please keep the animal in the back seat of your car, and not the trunk or bed of a pickup. Try to keep noise and disruption to a minimum and keep in mind that cigarette or cigar Continued Next Page
Spring 2017
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