North Texas Wildlife Center January 2025 Edition

NORTHTEXAS WILDLIFECENTER Our Team Intake Center Take a look at our facility

Research Initiatives We’re doing more than just rehabbing wildlife

Fall & Winter Behaviors Hibernation, torpor, and brumation

Coexistence Corner Rodenticides and alternatives Coexisting with Coyotes

Our Supporters Thank you to everyone who made our 2024 baby season a success!

January 2025

The Team at NTXWC Leadership: Rebecca Hamlin, President and Wildlife Specialist Lindsay Dreher, Vice President and Center Manager Mela Singleton, Founder and Chair of the Board Jeniffer Coats, Co-Founder and Board Secretary Lisa Ferre, Treasurer Danielle Goff, Director of Business Development Monique Yarbrough, Board Alternate Intake Team: Carie Juettner, Wildlife Intake Coordinator Amaris Riddle, Wildlife Specialist I Adam Urzua, Wildlife Specialist II Colleen Allen, Wildlife Specialist II Millie Jolene, Wildlife Specialist II Teah Fortner, Wildlife Care Technician Valerie Hinojoso, Wildlife Care Technician Veterinarian Team: Dr. Bethany Whetstone, DVM, Parker Animal and Bird Clinic Dr. Francesca Hoffpauir, DVM, Custer Rd. Animal Hospital Carly Lindsey, LVT, Custer Rd. Animal Hospital

Lindsay Dreher, Vice President and Center Manager, feeding an orphaned raccoon.

Rebecca Hamlin, President, triaging new baby opossums upon arrival.

2024 On-site Volunteers: Alejandra Carmona, Alexandria Vuong, Allie Kirk, Allison Cotton, Alyssa Russo, Amanda Dupler, Amanda Holmes, Amy Mccall, Ange Berenguer, Angel Martinez, Anja, Anna Kirklin, Ashton Harwood, Autumn Aymelek, Ayla Torres, Ayuko Daniels, Barbara Goodwin, Barbara Conway Miller, Ben Marek, Beth Bargar, Brandi Bowen, Brandon Camarillo, Brianna Blaney, Caremy Cedezma, Caroline Miller, Casey Magnuson, Cassidy Hamilton, Celina Anderson, Charlotte Carson, Charlotte Millsap, Cheslie Demaio, Chey Delaney, Chris Berg, Chris Wring, Christi Whitus-Randall, Christina Antonio, Christine Camarillo, Christine Hampshire, Colibri Morales, Crissy Dickinson, Cristi Landrum, Crysta Brockmann, Danielle Haury, Danielle O'Neil, Daphne Scantlin, Dave Ainsworth, Dawn Sellers, Debbie Neuts, Dee Shaw, Delores Bazor, Dina Nesterenko, Eli Meredith, Elle Smith, Ema Riviera, Emma Page, Erica Derricott, Erin Jackson, Erin Singleton, Flavia Carr, Gail Hollis, Genealen Teixeira, Gretchen Peterson, Haley Cox, Heather Alvis, Heather Haney, Holli Watts, Holly Pascarelli, Izabelle Singleton, Jayné Anthony, Jazmin Moncada, Jimmy Ho, Joann Dodson, Jocelyn T, Jonathan Ashton, Jonathan Dreher, Joseph Navarre, Juli Turner, Julian Villamar-Robbins, Justin Krey, Kara Marchetta, Karen Simon, Kathy Hood, Katie Welsh, Katlyn Nelms, Kaylee Davis, Kayley Barton, Kelley Fontenot, Kelly Cope, Kelly Day, Kelly Pfeifer, Kenzie Sprabary, Kim Marino, Kim Spall, Kira Hart, Krissy Palley, Kristen Kelly, Kristin Minajares, Kristyn Underwood, Laurel Toskey, Lauren Espy Lily Lurid, Lindsay Davis, Lisa Tanski-Cook, Liz Lou-Cana, Lori Battaglia, Luke Thomas, M'Liss Stringer, Marci Castro, Maria Defino, Mariana Alvarado, Marianne Lanphier, Marina Haynes, Marissa Dailey, Mary Ann, Mary Jane Flanagan, Mary Riley, Maxwell Bales, Mckayla, Mckenzie Sprabary, Meleah Pietrowicz, Michelle Nguyen, Mikaela Ferreira, Miriam Letoto, Mliss Stringer, Monique Yarborough, Mustafaa Miangara, Pam Sieling, Patrick P, Pj Babcock, Priscilla Sandlin, Rachel Crooks, Rachel Dreher, Rachel Ehrenberg, Raini Field, Rob Denbleyker, Rowan Cassady, Ruby Jackson, Sandy Romo, Sara Reffett, Sarah Hale, Sarah Martinez, Sharon Judy, Shayna Vanlehn, Skyler Fisher, Stephanie Brown, Susan Fraser, Sydney Yarbrough, Tasha Coleman, Teresa Scott, Teresa Thomas, Tommy Sparlin, Trinity Mercado, Trisha Romo, Vanessa Landy, Venus Delaney, Yesenia Springer 2024 Sub-permitted Rehabbers: Adrianna Fraga Allison Nottingham Amy Davis Ange Berenguer Ashley McCalvin Barbara West Bethany W. Beth M. Bob Helton Camie Orth Carly Lindsey Caroline Blair Celia Jones Charlotte Carson Colleen Allen Delores Bazor Genea Teixeira Harvest Hale Heather Haney Jen Coats Jesse Amezcua Joan Smith Joel Gardner Joey Cecena Joie Johnston Jordan Wilhelm Julie Clemons Kelsey Davis Kristyn Underwood LaTonja Thurman Laura Pearson Leann S. Linda Duhon Loylee P. Mary Claire Coats Megan Bishop Millie Thomas Monique Yarbrough PJ Babcock Rachel Wilson Raini Field Rebecca Quattrini Rebecka Jackson Renee Dowhaniuk Sarah Hale Sarah Stovall Shannon Delaney Sherri B. Suzanne P. Teah Fortner Teri Porterfield Valerie Hinojos

A Day in the Life at NTXWC Every day at North Texas Wildlife Center brings something new! We never know what patients will arrive. A typical day starts with hand-feeding babies, medicating patients, cleaning cages, preparing and distributing enrichment, and a lot of cleaning. There’s never a dull moment at NTXWC.

A Look at our Intake Center: Front of House The “front of the house” (FOH) is where a majority of our orphans and new patients are housed.

Incubators provide thermoregulation for orphaned and injured wildlife. We also have oxygen available for more critical patients. These patients usually require multiple hand-feedings per day or are on medication. They are kept up front to ensure their safety, wellbeing, and close monitoring.

Quarantine incubators allow us to separate our patients into smaller groups. These are ideal for birds, small mammals, and even lizards and toads.

The soft mesh cages are transitional cages for several different species.

Baby birds are hand-fed every 15-30 minutes depending on the species. They are kept at the front of the house to ensure their needs are met in a timely and consistent manner.

Volunteers gather around the feeding table several times throughout the day to bottle feed baby raccoons, syringe feed baby squirrels, and tube feed baby opossums as well as other patients.

Our medicine cabinet provides an extensive variety of treatments our wildlife patients may experience.

Ranging from antibiotics and pain medication to preventives and nutritional supplements, this is a critical part of the care we provide.

A Look at our Intake Center: Triage Room The triage room is a multi-purpose room for a variety of species. This room has an exam table, overhead lighting, and tools on hand for our vets to use when they drop in to check on our patients. There are also incubators, transitional cages, and a dry docking station for turtles.

Depending on the time of year, this room may house anything from baby birds learning to selffeed to turtles recovering from being hit by cars.

Transitional cages are typically used for birds as they learn to self-feed and become more active. They still receive supplemental feedings to ensure weight gain and their nutritional needs are met.

Our triage room exam table and other supplies needed for processing new intakes and vet visits.

A young dove is weighed on intake.

An opossum with a broken arm is looked at by our vet and gets a splint.

A crow smiles for a photo after receiving oral medication and eye drops.

A Look at our Intake Center: Other Areas We have two other rooms as well as pre-release enclosures. With over 150 cages, we are equipped for waterfowl, small raptors, songbirds, mammals like opossums, raccoons, squirrel, skunks and armadillos. We have enclosures that can be quickly modified or adapted for a variety of native species.

The predator room is typically full of opossums, raccoons, and even skunks depending on the time of year.

The prey room has squirrel cages, cottontail cages, and a transitional flight cage for songbirds.

Opie alley has small, medium, and large enclosures for opossums.

Multiple aviaries are available with easy modifications suitable for a variety of avian species.

Pre-release raccoon enclosures provide ample space for enrichment, exploration, and honing natural skills.

A Step Further: Our Research Initiatives Through loss, we discover purpose; each life that fades at the North Texas Wildlife Center becomes a beacon, guiding our research and deepening our commitment to protect those who remain.

The Effects of Rodenticide on Native Predators Predator and mesopredator patients that are admitted due to suspected or confirmed rodenticide will be logged and tracked for outcome measures. Patients that succumb to rodenticide poisoning will be sent to Texas A&M for necropsy. The goal of this is to provide substantial findings to present to policy-makers to ban anticoagulant rodenticides.

Native Texas Turtles Turtle patient data will be shared with researchers for tracking purposes. Cadavers of certain species will be transferred to Texas Turtles for further examination and used for educational purposes where they deem fit.

Scavenger Behaviors Corvids and raptors that die of natural causes will be transferred to a permitted research organization to monitor and better understand scavenger behaviors.

Bird Window Strikes Birds of all species that are admitted due to window strikes will be tracked for outcome measures. Additionally, this data will be submitted to several databases to help quantify mortality of birds due to window strikes, identify hotspots of mortality, and propose mitigation measures.

Other Initiatives: Animal abuse trends in North Texas.

Pest control companies with inhumane practices contrary to their advertisements.

Animals hit by cars being entered into a national database to (hopefully) catch hot spots and help petition for safer roadways and even wildlife bridges.

Wildlife Behaviors during Fall & Winter As temperatures drop, the days become shorter and maybe a little snow falls. Humans have a multitude of ways to stay warm; we can layer up, wear a big coat – hats, gloves and scarves can cover areas of skin that may be more exposed to the elements – or we seek shelter in a warm building. While animals cannot seek the same methods of keeping warm and thriving in winter, they have adapted to survive through frigid temperatures.

Wildlife, depending on the species and location, can migrate, undergo hibernation, enter into torpor, or brumate to protect themselves against the harsh elements winter weather brings.

Hibernation Migration

Birds need abundant food supplies because of their high metabolic rate. In the Northern Hemisphere when the weather changes, birds move north in the spring and south for the winter. Milder regions provide more food options, but also more daylight hours to find the food they and their nestlings need. Fall migration spans a longer time range, late August into midNovember.

Around October/November, groundhogs crawl down into their burrows and begin to hibernate. As the days shorten, temperatures drop, and plants begin to die or go dormant for the winter, a groundhog's body releases a hormone that helps guide the animal into hibernation until the weather warms and the days begin to grow longer - around February/March.

Brumation Torpor

Torpor is a state of decreased physiological activity in an animal, usually marked by a reduced body temperature and metabolic rate. Torpor enables animals to survive periods of reduced food availability.

Brumation is a winter cool-down which allows the turtle to survive when food is scarce, and temperatures are lower.

Turtles burrow into soft soil and enter into a period of sluggishness, inactivity and torpor. They live off stored fat and their metabolism slows but they can still move around if needed.

When we know better, we can do better.

Rodenticides kill more than just rodents.

Rodenticide

Small mammals ingest the poison.

Larger animals like owls, foxes, and hawks prey on small mammals that ingested rodenticide, thus becoming poisoned themselves.

Scavengers like raccoons, vultures, and coyotes can become poisoned when they consume the carcasses of animals killed by rodenticides overtime.

PROTECT WILDLIFE. CHOOSE HUMANELY.

YOU CAN HELP WILDLIFE AVOID A STICKY SITUATION. DON'T USE GLUE TRAPS. Sticky traps, also known as glue traps or glue boards, are considered one of the cruelest and most dangerous wildlife control products. Animals who touch a glue board are immediately caught and stuck to the board and usually suffer a slow death by starvation or suffocation. They are indiscriminate and pose a risk to all wildlife, not just the target rat or mouse.

An Eastern Cottontail was admitted to NTXWC after being found on a sticky trap.

After carefully removing him and allowing him to recover, he was released back into the wild.

Tips for Humanely Managing Wildlife Conflicts Habitat Modification Remove Nesting Sites: Keep your yard free from clutter, such as piles of leaves, wood, or debris, which might attract rodents looking for shelter.

Trim Vegetation: Cut back shrubs and trees that are close to the house to make the area less appealing to rodents.

Exclusion Methods Seal Entry Points: Ensure that all cracks, gaps, and holes in your home are sealed, especially around doors, windows, pipes, and vents.

Install Mesh or Steel Wool: Rodents can't chew through steel wool or mesh, so use these materials to block potential entry points.

Door Sweeps and Weather Stripping: Install these to close gaps at the bottoms of doors.

Natural Predators (without cats) Owl Boxes: Encourage owls to nest near your property by installing owl boxes. Owls naturally hunt rodents.

Rodent Birth Control Products like Evolve and ContraPest offer solutions that do not travel up the food chain.

Using these methods helps address rodent problems in a way that aligns with humane principles and minimizes harm to the animals involved.

SCRAP THE TRAP! Trapping is ineffective because if you do not remove the attractant and effectively secure all entry points, other wildlife will move in.

There are three main reasons why trapping and relocating is no longer considered humane: Relocated adults rarely survive in a new environment.

Animals can, and do, injure themselves when trying to escape the traps.

Babies become separated from their parents and die.

Opossums are highly likely to injure themselves in traps. Due to the anatomy of their jaw and teeth, they often get their teeth through the bars on the trap but cannot easily get back out. As a result, they panic and twist/turn and in some cases, fracture or break their jaw.

A majority of our 2024 raccoon patients arrived after being inhumanely separated from their mom during trapping and removal efforts by local pest control companies.

COEXISTING WITH COYOTES

HERE ARE A FEW TIPS TO HELP YOU STAY PREPARED, SAFE, AND INFORMED ON COYOTES IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.

1.

KEEP CATS INDOORS OR SUPERVISED IN CLOSE PROXIMITY. KEEP DOGS LEASHED AND SUPERVISED. BE PREPARED TO PICK UP YOUR PET. AVOID USING RETRACTABLE LEASHES.

2.

REMOVE POTENTIAL FOOD AND WATER SOURCES FROM YOUR YARD LIKE PET FOOD, FALLEN FRUIT AND BIRD SEED, AND STANDING WATER.

3.

KNOW HOW TO HAZE AND DO IT! IF YOU SEE A COYOTE, STAND TALL, CLAP YOUR HANDS, MAKE NOISE. THIS WILL REINFORCE THE COYOTE'S INNATE FEAR OF HUMANS. DO THIS UNTIL THE COYOTE LEAVES.

Meet our ambassadors Widget, Eastern screech owl

Poppy, gray morph opossum w/mbd Coconut, leucistic opossum

Our ambassadors allow people to have an up-close and personal learning experience with native Texas wildlife. They help promote wildlife education and peaceful coexistence.

Angel ambassadors

Fanged Out Animal Rescue and Outreach

Rosemary Haggar Vaughan Family Foundation

Special thanks to: Andersons Eatery and Distillery Celestial Beerworks Cicada Civil Pour Coffee + Beer False Idol Brewing Four Bullets Brewery Intrinsic Brewing Lockwood Distilling Company The Bearded Monk Turning Point Beer Vector Brewing

We light this candle in honor of the animals that didn't make it to freedom.

Support us today so we can save wildlife tomorrow! 🛒 Rehab Wishlist Volunteer Snack Wishlist

👚 Swag Shop Monetary donations: PayPal Venmo: @NTXWC 4-digit code is 9453 Cash app: $NTXWC Zelle: accounting@ntxwildlife.org Snail Mail: NTXWC PO Box 830212 Richardson TX 75083

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🦉 CLICK HERE to host a Facebook fundraiser for us We are a volunteer-based, 501c3 nonprofit located in Plano, Texas. We serve all North Texas counties by rescuing, rehabbing, and releasing native wildlife. We exist because of your support. Help us, help them.

EIN: 61-1725985