Drop the squirrel

[tolkienfan]

One of my friends who is a Naturalist shared this article via social media yesterday. After reading it, I thought that many of the people here would find it interesting

http://suziegilbert.wordpress.com/20...and-back-away/

The basic premise is that no one is capable of helping a wild creature besides that creature's mother or your official local wildlife rehabilitator.

Beyond being an informative read, I think it raises an issue within our culture.

- I feel that people are culturally encouraged (at least in the U.S.) to do all of the things the article says NOT to do. If you walk by a injured/starving/abandoned critter and do nothing, you are a heartless jerk.

- This is especially true if you are a child. HOW many children's books have I read where the main character finds an injured baby bird, takes it home, against the odds convinces their (heartless) parents to let them keep it, nurses it back to health, and painfully but heroically releases it back into the wild?

- How many people loudly and often take pride in the fact that they were "that kid" that was always bringing home critters to care for? In fact, if you weren't "that kid", how dare you even consider becoming a nurse/naturalist/veterinarian/animal-lover/doctor/etc.?
Note that the article does point out that even a few decades ago there weren't many local wildlife rehabilitators and sometimes taking the animal home may have been your best option.

Does anyone else feel like there's a cultural barrier to following the recommendations of the article? Does anyone have further insights? Can anyone comment on similarities/differences in other parts of the world?

[Alcuin]

- blanked -

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by tolkienfan

The basic premise is that no one is capable of helping a wild creature besides that creature's mother or your official local wildlife rehabilitator.

I wouldn't go that far. I would rather say very few people beside the creature's mother and wildlife recovery centres have the knowledge to help a wild animal. Mind you, mortality among baby creatures is high, even in centres. Not all of the birds we took there survived.

But it was an informative read. I agree the law is not beneficial to wildlife. Ninety days is a long time to potentially mess up or habituate a young creature to humans, wrecking any chance of a possible release.

A better way yet would be to promote the local wildlife centres.

My parents used to support a bird care and release centre. Sometimes, when we found a hatchling out of its nest and couldn't put it back, we took it there. We as kids loved that, so bringing animals to professionals might be just as much a worthwhile experience for children instead of letting them raise and tame a wild animal with all possible the consequences themselves. (We got a tour of the facility once, we got to name two swans ready for release and a baby heron nearly took out my eye. Good times.)

I agree wholeheartedly that volunteering at one's local center if wildlife interests you is more worthwhile than taking chances with animals' lives to learn how to care for them. They can always use more hands. I always wanted to do so but our local centre shut down before I was old enough.

[Insidious Rex]

Yes, taking care of a wild animal is not at all like they show in the cartoons or we imagine in our mind. Had a friend who's 7 year old daughter found a baby chipmunk and insisted on keeping it and of course once it grew it escaped and destroyed a $2000 television by chewing through the back and electrocuting istelf among the wires... When I was a child I once found a robins egg in my yard with no sign of a nest anywhere in sight so I took it in knowing getting it warm was critical. I jury rigged a lamp sideways near the egg so that the warmth from the light would radiate on the egg. Went downstairs to watch tv and when I came upstairs a few hours later I found the lamp had fallen on a nearby mattress and had burned a hole through the mattress and set the mattress guts into a smoldering fire. Tried to put it out with water but that sucker just kept smoking so I called the fire department and told them look I was trying to warm up this egg and I managed to set my mattress on fire now its only smoldering and giving off smoke. Theres no flames but I cant put it out so maybe can you send a guy over to help me. Next thing I knew 2 or 3 screaming fire trucks come pulling up and 5 or 6 fireman in full gear jumping out, run upstairs, drag the mattress ALL the way downstairs and into the front yard and proceed to pick it apart with axes and then spray foam all over the guts... All this in front of neighbors in broad day light. Talk about embarrassing... And all this for an egg!

[tolkienfan]

What happened to Alcuin's post? I thought it was an excellent counter-argument and had some great anecdotes. It definitely made me think deeper about the topic and I was considering a reply.

[Alec]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

When I was a child I once found a robins egg in my yard with no sign of a nest anywhere in sight so I took it in knowing getting it warm was critical. I jury rigged a lamp sideways near the egg so that the warmth from the light would radiate on the egg. Went downstairs to watch tv and when I came upstairs a few hours later I found the lamp had fallen on a nearby mattress and had burned a hole through the mattress and set the mattress guts into a smoldering fire. Tried to put it out with water but that sucker just kept smoking so I called the fire department and told them look I was trying to warm up this egg and I managed to set my mattress on fire now its only smoldering and giving off smoke. Theres no flames but I cant put it out so maybe can you send a guy over to help me. Next thing I knew 2 or 3 screaming fire trucks come pulling up and 5 or 6 fireman in full gear jumping out, run upstairs, drag the mattress ALL the way downstairs and into the front yard and proceed to pick it apart with axes and then spray foam all over the guts... All this in front of neighbors in broad day light. Talk about embarrassing... And all this for an egg!

Scary, but how old were you then?

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by Myself

Scary, but how old were you then?

Probably 9 or 10.

[Rían]

Hilarious, IRex!

What happened to the egg, btw?

[Alec]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Probably 9 or 10.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by tolkienfan

What happened to Alcuin's post? I thought it was an excellent counter-argument and had some great anecdotes. It definitely made me think deeper about the topic and I was considering a reply.

Well, thank you, tolkienfan! I removed it because I really do not have time for a good argument, and because there are so few participants these days at the ’Moot, I did not want to (deeply) offend anyone and drive someone away. But since you have asked, here is what I posted, less any edits I made along the way. (Admins are welcome to change or correct what I posted compared to what is here – please strikethrough any of this and post the corrections.)

Originally Posted by Alcuin

My mother grew up on a farm. She and her siblings had many animals as pets, including a lamb of which mother became endeared as a child: when her father slaughtered it, she refused to eat any of the meat, and wept while the rest of the family did.

Her family had often orphaned raccoons and squirrels as pets, and now elderly, they recall them fondly. (Both are mischievous, but raccoons particularly so.) As an elderly lady, my grandmother still lived on the farm, and once kept a squirrel that she sometimes allowed into her kitchen, to the horror of my mother and her sister.

I think this notion that people should not have or commune with “wild� animals is a purely turn-of-the-century pretension. There is no antecedent for it in human history: we have domesticated many animals, and continue to do so. My daughter told me this weekend of a woman who owned a domesticated fox that someone, apparently falsely and maliciously and certainly anonymously, accused of biting a person: the police in that town entered the woman’s house without a warrant, seized the animal, which was legal and licensed, and killed it without giving her any say or recourse. She’s suing them: I hope she refuses to settle, and wins a large judgment.

This strikes me as akin to the nineteenth-century utopian notion of the “Noble Savage�.

This idea that man should be divorced from the world in which he lives is dangerous because it is false – we cannot be divorced or removed from the world in which we live – but it also shuns one of our duties as human beings: to care for the world in which we live. Would you also abandon an endangered creature to die because it is “the natural� thing to do?

Finally, the claim that we should “leave it to the professionals� appears to be nothing other than a naked appeal to state-sponsored rent-seeking. No amateurs, we get paid for this! In plain English, This is our turf, we get paid to do it, and everyone keep off: this our meal ticket! I think it transparently self-serving As for that last comment, “I know nothing about kids. If I found a child wandering around the mall and tried to take him home and care for him, I’d release him in much worse shape than I found him,� what kind of person says such things? If she cannot or will not help a fellow human being, why would I trust her with an animal?

I grew up in a very different world from “city-dwellers,� though I am and have been all my life a “city-dweller� myself. There were in my youth around (and akin to!) me many farmers and hunters who know animals well. I cannot conceive nor can I countenance any bar toward an Alaskan wilderness family adopting and rearing a lost bear cub, or a Nebraska farming family succoring a lost eaglet. These bans are anathema to human reason and responsibility! To argue otherwise is a [strikes me as] selfish, mean-minded, narrow religiosity driven by the greed and avarice of those who stake the claims! [I consider it] It is utterly wicked and inexcusable!

That being said, I live in a long-urbanized community and have no expertise in raising animals (other than dogs and cats), and if I found a baby (or wounded) raccoon, hawk, or deer fawn, I would call the state authorities, or better yet my friend and neighbor and fellow parishioner the biologist (whose wife is our veterinarian) and tell him (and especially his wife!!) what I’d found.

Because without professionals, I would be sure to foul it up. Besides, they get paid for that.

REASON, not legalism, must prevail. If you cannot exercise reason, forget the animals ― your HUMANITY is lost.

[Earniel]

I see no problems with your post, Alcuin. You raise good points. I agree with several.

I daresay I made my argument largely from the view of a city dweller, since that is what I know. City children do not have the same opportunities to interact with -let alone care for- wild animals in the way children in rural areas would. We laugh at it, but often the only time city children have seen cows is in commercials of Milka and yes, some do think therefor that cows are naturally purple.

I wholeheartedly agree that the last thing we should do is cut ourselves off from nature! People should celebrate, revel in the few wild places we have left and hold them dear and preserve them. But sadly sometimes preserving also mean staying away. Many animals need quiet to raise their young, some forests are better closed off for the human population when the animals have young. Petting cute baby animals is a powerful impulse, but if it leads to the mother not recognising her offspring's scent and abandoning it, then you really messed up. Baby deer of the local variety for example are notoriously difficult to raise by humans, the stress more often than not kills them. In or out of wildlife rehabiliation centres. People should know not to pick up hidden deer-calves when they find it hidden in shrubs, thinking it hurt, and don't see mom right away. One needs to know nature to know the right time when to engage, when to back off and when to let the professionals handle it. We can't do that if we cut ourselves off from nature.

Having wild animals as pets, is a far more conflicted issue for me and one I won't enter here. But there are many more, better perhaps, ways to interact with nature than taking it out of the wild and into your home.

My parents always made great efforts to let us connect with nature. Teaching us about animals, taking us to forests, letting us plant our own plants in the garden, etc... I think that is necessary and I had a good time growing up. But... I think letting kids care for wild animals with no prior knowledge or help is not a good way to start.

Because without professionals, I would be sure to foul it up. Besides, they get paid for that.

There are some that are paid, or supported, there are an equal if not greater number of volunteers who do it simply out of love.

[Alcuin]

Thank you, Eärniel. I am not one to conceal my disagreements with the prevailing social current, and was concerned that they would cause inappropriate dismay.

I was taught as a child to leave young animals alone precisely because the mother might identify human scent and abandon her young. Since this lesson was conveyed in the 1960s, and my parents had learned it as children as well, and their parents and their parents’ siblings knew it as well, it must be old knowledge, not some new-fangled discovery. My friends knew it, too, so I always considered it widely-held. Farming families, however, had no compunction about adopting an abandoned wild animal and often did, even when I was growing up: deer, raccoons, and squirrels were typical examples. In more northern climes, people have adopted moose, which is quite the chore, particularly if an adult moose wants to re-enter “its� house; and I am aware of one plains family that adopted an American buffalo (bison), which still enters their house.

The impetus in the United States today, however, is to outlaw the adoption of wild animals, even if it means that they die. Alaska has been arresting people for adopting wild animals, especially bear cubs. It is this flat prohibition, particularly the (un)reasoning behind it, that seems to me so odious, and to which I stringently object.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

Thank you, Eärniel. I am not one to conceal my disagreements with the prevailing social current, and was concerned that they would cause inappropriate dismay.

There is bound to be disagreement on any topics. But if the arguments are made respectfully, as you did here, I don't see a problem.

I was taught as a child to leave young animals alone precisely because the mother might identify human scent and abandon her young. Since this lesson was conveyed in the 1960s, and my parents had learned it as children as well, and their parents and their parents’ siblings knew it as well, it must be old knowledge, not some new-fangled discovery. My friends knew it, too, so I always considered it widely-held.

I assume it will no doubt vary locally. I do recall the wildlife rehabilitation centres here still put out yearly warnings in the deer-calf season not to bring in baby deer unless the walkers are absolutely certain, after several hours of observation, that it is abandoned or really injured. I do remember at least one such case locally within the last few years. They are likely exceptions rather than the rule but some people still do need the memo.

The impetus in the United States today, however, is to outlaw the adoption of wild animals, even if it means that they die. Alaska has been arresting people for adopting wild animals, especially bear cubs. It is this flat prohibition, particularly the (un)reasoning behind it, that seems to me so odious, and to which I stringently object.

Well, it depends for me. It is sad that our contact with nature has to be thus regulated but I can see the reasoning behind the principle. If adoption leads to the animal becoming some sort of glorified pet, I find myself torn to support it, especially with endangered, protected or predatory animals (disregarding exotic creatures for a moment as that's a whole different discussion). Most predators, apart from some canidae, make poor pets. Making animals accostumed to humans interacting and feeding them can lead the animals to forsake their natural fear and bring them into conflict with other humans. This happened to many a poor bear. How many of these 'problem animals' are put down every year? And in our current society, in human-animal-conflict, the animals always lose.

On the other hand, I remember a heart-breaking documentary 'A killer whale called Luna' in which a young solitary orca tries to make friends with local people. By laws that are meant to have the animals' best interest at heart, environmental agencies tried hard to limit contact between people and Luna. Warnings, fines, etc. It was hard for the people who genuinely cared for the animal. And for a social animal like an orca I think that too was hard on Luna. But his wish for contact did get him killed eventually, which might have as easily happened if contact hadn't been prohibited. I think that for cases like poor and lonely Luna there is no good decision to make.

It brings a difficult discussion to the foreground: what is best for the animals? Life in the wild that may be short and painful? Or life in a human environment where they might not belong or fit, but at least they will be alive and often even happy? Personally I cannot decide. Both ways will lead to tragedy anyhow.

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Hilarious, IRex!

What happened to the egg, btw?

I think we (my sister, my mom and myself) ended up putting it in a box with some cotton and other insulation after all the hubub. But I dont remember anything coming of it so it was probably dead all along...

[tolkienfan]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

Well, thank you, tolkienfan! I removed it because I really do not have time for a good argument, and because there are so few participants these days at the ’Moot, I did not want to (deeply) offend anyone and drive someone away. But since you have asked, here is what I posted, less any edits I made along the way. (Admins are welcome to change or correct what I posted compared to what is here – please strikethrough any of this and post the corrections.)

No problem! I too was worried that my original post might offend someone. But I think the lack of activity around here is more likely to drive people away than anything well-meaning mooters say, so post away!

Originally Posted by Alcuin

I grew up in a very different world from “city-dwellers,� though I am and have been all my life a “city-dweller� myself. There were in my youth around (and akin to!) me many farmers and hunters who know animals well. I cannot conceive nor can I countenance any bar toward an Alaskan wilderness family adopting and rearing a lost bear cub, or a Nebraska farming family succoring a lost eaglet. These bans are anathema to human reason and responsibility! To argue otherwise is a [strikes me as] selfish, mean-minded, narrow religiosity driven by the greed and avarice of those who stake the claims! [I consider it] It is utterly wicked and inexcusable!

That being said, I live in a long-urbanized community and have no expertise in raising animals (other than dogs and cats), and if I found a baby (or wounded) raccoon, hawk, or deer fawn, I would call the state authorities, or better yet my friend and neighbor and fellow parishioner the biologist (whose wife is our veterinarian) and tell him (and especially his wife!!) what I’d found.

Because without professionals, I would be sure to foul it up. Besides, they get paid for that.

REASON, not legalism, must prevail. If you cannot exercise reason, forget the animals ― your HUMANITY is lost.

I definitely agree with this post 100%.

My only difficulty with your initial post gets back to how I started the thread. Crying and going to bed hungry while your family eats a lamb or having a pet squirrel is exactly the kind of story I was talking about. When 100s of city kids hear this story, they want to become the hero. The problem is, they DON'T live on a farm and neither they nor their parents have the resources or the knowledge to raise a sheep. This is where we run into the issues that the professionals face where they are given the animal only when it is too late to save them. Let's face it, the majority of people are not farmers/Alaskans and are incapable of helping a wild animal, however much they would like to. I believe that the article is/should be directed towards the people who do not realize this.

I think you have definitely raised several good points though about how the legal side of things can sadly end up directed at the few who actually do know what they are doing, even if they don't have a degree/training.

[Alcuin]

What delight, tolkienfan! You and I find ourselves on the same side of the argument, and to our mutual surprise.

Now, to the matter of statute and regulation.

No one can outlaw stupidity, ignorance, foolishness, or honest mistake. It is enough, I believe, to tell schoolchildren in urbanized areas, “Don’t bother the baby animals! Stay away from them so that their mothers will not be frightened to come for them; but if their mother doesn’t come for them, call� whomever. Most animal rescue leagues here in New England are staffed and run by “trained amateurs� anyway, which means they’re not really “amateurs,� but professionals or semi-professionals without degrees. After all, if there are any professional linguists, philologists, and university-level English professors posting here at Entmoot, I am unaware of it; but I come here when I can for good company and good discussion, particularly on JRR Tolkien’s body of work, and for good threads such as this. “Amateurs� should never be underestimated or denigrated, and we all have to learn somehow.

But back to the topic. Since we can not, or should not try to, outlaw stupidity, ignorance, foolishness, or honest error, how do we deal with people who do things stupidly, out of ignorance, foolishly, or make an honest mistake? I would argue that, if no people are injured, we should probably just discuss the matter in public – in the news media, so that everyone will be aware of it – and make a point to be sure that anyone paying attention will know what to do next time. That is one of the primary purposes of journalism (though that noble profession seems to have fallen into the clutches of avarice and fear of the powerful, and so become a mere conveyor of propaganda). It’s the modern equivalent of a village or parish meeting in which the elders bring out the offender, ask him uncomfortable questions about what he did, point out why that was a bad idea, correct him publicly – so that everyone else in the village or parish knows why it was a bad idea and what to do next time (because there’s always a next time) – and let him go.

The wrong response, I think, is for some legislator or regulator who is often highly formally educated, but completely ignorant of how other people live and what they know, and therefore foolish enough to be sufficiently arrogant to pass a law or make a regulation outlawing what they do not understand for those who do. That might be an honest mistake on the part of the official, but it’s still a mistake.

While you cannot outlaw stupidity, ignorance, or foolishness, that doesn’t mean stupid, ignorant, foolish people don’t make rules. They do. If allowed to run unchecked, they will make most of them.

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

I think we (my sister, my mom and myself) ended up putting it in a box with some cotton and other insulation after all the hubub. But I dont remember anything coming of it so it was probably dead all along...

We found an egg on the ground once when I was a small boy, and I wanted to take it inside and hatch it, too. My mother (she grew up on a farm, as I posted earlier) told me that mother birds could tell if an egg was bad, and will push a bad egg out of the nest to preserve the other eggs. And other birds, like cuckoos in Europe or cowbirds in North America, are brood parasites, which means they push other birds’ eggs out of their nests, lay their own eggs, and the unsuspecting mother birds who made the nest rear the larger, more aggressive cuckoo or cowbird chicks instead of their own.

[tolkienfan]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

It is enough, I believe, to tell schoolchildren in urbanized areas, “Don’t bother the baby animals! Stay away from them so that their mothers will not be frightened to come for them; but if their mother doesn’t come for them, call� whomever.

Yes, but what I'm saying is that most children, urban or not, hear less of this, and more of the stories about farm kids who do get to save the animals.

Originally Posted by Alcuin

Most animal rescue leagues here in New England are staffed and run by “trained amateurs� anyway, which means they’re not really “amateurs,� but professionals or semi-professionals without degrees. After all, if there are any professional linguists, philologists, and university-level English professors posting here at Entmoot, I am unaware of it; but I come here when I can for good company and good discussion, particularly on JRR Tolkien’s body of work, and for good threads such as this. “Amateurs� should never be underestimated or denigrated, and we all have to learn somehow.

Sure

Originally Posted by Alcuin

But back to the topic. Since we can not, or should not try to, outlaw stupidity, ignorance, foolishness, or honest error, how do we deal with people who do things stupidly, out of ignorance, foolishly, or make an honest mistake?

So I'm proposing that besides these reasons, there may also be a cultural side to the problem. The stupid/ignorant/foolish/mistaken thing to do (for most but not all people, as you pointed out) is romanticized and idolized to the point where people, especially children, have a hard time resisting any opportunity to "help" an animal, whether or not they have any idea if the animal needs help or if they are able to provide it.

Originally Posted by Alcuin

I would argue that, if no people are injured, we should probably just discuss the matter in public – in the news media, so that everyone will be aware of it – and make a point to be sure that anyone paying attention will know what to do next time. That is one of the primary purposes of journalism (though that noble profession seems to have fallen into the clutches of avarice and fear of the powerful, and so become a mere conveyor of propaganda). It’s the modern equivalent of a village or parish meeting in which the elders bring out the offender, ask him uncomfortable questions about what he did, point out why that was a bad idea, correct him publicly – so that everyone else in the village or parish knows why it was a bad idea and what to do next time (because there’s always a next time) – and let him go.

Maybe this is a potential way to help change the culture, if indeed that is part of the problem.

Originally Posted by Alcuin

The wrong response, I think, is for some legislator or regulator who is often highly formally educated, but completely ignorant of how other people live and what they know, and therefore foolish enough to be sufficiently arrogant to pass a law or make a regulation outlawing what they do not understand for those who do. That might be an honest mistake on the part of the official, but it’s still a mistake.

While you cannot outlaw stupidity, ignorance, or foolishness, that doesn’t mean stupid, ignorant, foolish people don’t make rules. They do. If allowed to run unchecked, they will make most of them.

Good point.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by tolkienfan

Yes, but what I'm saying is that most children, urban or not, hear less of this, and more of the stories about farm kids who do get to save the animals.

But of course it is! We’re people, we’re alive, we’re hopeful. If I’m sick, I don’t want to hear about the numerous folk who’ve succumbed to my illness, but those who have beaten the sickness and recovered. If I’m in battle, I don’t want to dwell on the dead and dying: I want to live. If your focus is upon death, upon evil, you’ll never achieve the good.

In the Ephel Dúath, when he and Sam sat down to rest in the cleft before they entered Shelob’s Lair, Frodo told Sam, “Earth, air and water all seem accursed.� Sam replied,

Yes, that’s so. And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on – and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same – like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?