Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network is open 7 days a week to receive thousands of wild animals, including orphaned and injured wildlife babies during Spring Baby Season. Join the Network and give animals a second chance at life in the wild.
From March–August every year, SBWCN receives an influx of patients that coincides with the breeding and nesting seasons for local wildlife. Most of the animals that arrive are babies, nestlings, infants, or juveniles who can not survive on their own. They range from newborn opossums to hummingbird hatchlings, but the goal is always the same:
Wildlife Rehabilitation involves a lot of work and resources
2,100 babies
An average of will come to SBWCN during baby season to be rescued, rehabilitated, and released.
An average of
200 volunteers
are needed per week to help feed and care for baby wildlife.
to give them a safe space to heal and grow up until they’re able to be released back into the wild.
Ducklings are one of our most numerous patients An average of 250 patients per year. Because they are so susceptible to avian influenza, our team is required to wear full PPE and test each grouping for HPAI.
By joining the Baby Season Fund Drive, you are directly supporting the care of thousands of orphaned and injured baby animals.
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Our staff works an average of
14,700 hours during baby season.
The songbird nursery is the busiest room in our animal hospital during baby season. With over 100 birds in the songbird room on average, it can quickly add up to per day.
3,000-5,000 feedings
Orphaned raccoons generally come in one at a time and will stay in care for nearly 6 months. Raccoons are bottle fed as babies, and then are introduced to other baby raccoons so they can make family groups and grow up with other raccoons. Raccoons are given behavioral enrichment activities that teach them how to forage when they are released back into the wild.
Orphaned baby opossums are tube fed if they are very young, and then individually syringe fed. Feeding can take several hours a day. We care for an average of 380 opossums per year. Fun fact: Opossums are North America’s only marsupial, and an opossum will eat an average of 5,000 ticks a year!
Our first patients of spring are hummingbirds. They are fed every 15 minutes from dawn until dusk, which is up to 52 feedings per day. Common local hummingbird species are Alan’s hummingbirds and Anna’s hummingbirds. Staff places fresh flowers in hummingbird enclosures to give them fresh nectar. SBWCN recommends planting native flower species in landscaping to support pollinators like hummingbirds!
www.sbwcn.org/babyseason
Choose from a selection of packages from the gift registry to support specific needs.
www.sbwcn.org/donate Support the care of thousands of baby animals by making a general donation.
www.sbwcn.org/donate Shop directly from SBWCN's Amazon Wishlist to help purchase items in need.
We often receive entire nests of woodpeckers. Orphaned Woodpeckers need to be fed every 2030 minutes. They eat crickets, dubia cockroaches and a variety of worms and beetles. They store their acorns in the sides of trees called granaries.
It is critically important that Woodpeckers are released back to the wild with a woodpecker flock who shares their same regional language.
Bobcats are rare patients at SBWCN and require specialized conditions for care. Bobcats are extremely critical to our local ecosystems as effective predators.. Bobcats are susceptible to car strikes and rodenticide poisoning.
Ducklings are one of our most numerous patients, and we will care for an average of 250 ducklings per year. Because they are so susceptible to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, our team is required to wear full PPE and test each grouping for the Avian Flu.
