Adventures of a Midwestern Girl in Sunny, Sunny California

A couple of weeks ago, a young raccoon came in to WildCare after being stuck in a garbage can with her sibling for at least a week. The trash can had accumulated several inches of water during a rain storm. Unfortunately, her sibling died in the can.
By the time she was found and brought [...]

Remember the little singleton raccoon that needed a bath this summer? We released him last Sunday, along with 6 other juvenile raccoons! Baby raccoons do not do well as singletons, so we create family groups of usually 4-8 orphans. They also do better when released as a group; they look out for each [...]

Difficult as it may be to believe, my favorite thing about raccoon foster care is not picking up a steaming pile at 6:30 in the morning. No, my favorite thing is releasing them into the wild! It was time for 4 lucky contestants to venture out into the world last Friday. Scheduling [...]

This is my sixth year doing raccoon foster care for WildCare but last weekend I got to do something I hadn’t done before: give a raccoon a bath!
We have a little singleton raccoon who came in about 2 weeks ago. He’s the guy we got the message about after we got back from Santa [...]

I have been meaning to post these pictures for weeks now. Sorry for the delay!
In April, Steve and I babysat a 5-day-old raccoon one afternoon while his foster parent took the afternoon off.
He was very tiny and stll had his umbilical cord attached. He was very cute, but I think the raccoons we [...]

After a very slow start to the year, spring has finally arrived at WildCare. As soon as the first batch of ducklings arrive, you know all hell is about to break loose. Said first ducklings showed up last week, and we got our second batch on Sunday during our shift, as well as [...]

Over the last 5 years of volunteering at WildCare, I have done things that I never would have believed I had the stomach for. I have given shots, sutured a gash in an opossum, cleaned up pounds of raccoon poop in one fell swoop, disemboweled various food items, and cleaned deep, superating puncture wounds. [...]

A couple of weeks ago, Steve and I babysat for some foster care raccoons while their foster parent was away for a week. All of the raccoons that we had looked after earlier this summer were in varying stages of depression, anxiety, and wildness. They had all come to WildCare a little older [...]

Last weekend Steve and I got to do one of my favorite things about volunteering at WildCare. We got to release some patients. Specifically, we got to release 6 orphaned raccoons that had grown into burly, strapping adolescents.
We found a great location for them in the woods near a creek, and not all [...]

The golden eagle was still at WildCare on Sunday and we got a couple of pictures this time. That’s me feeding it. Steve is holding it, even though you can’t see him.

I should note that the eagle has a pelvic injury that prevents it from grasping mice with its talons and self-feeding. [...]