Playing on the Wild Side...

It’s tough to figure out where to start when it’s been so long since I’ve written. I guess I’ll start with my poor kitty cat that was trapped in a car engine. The person drove the car not knowing the cat was in the engine, unfortunately when the car was driven the cat got tangled in the axle causing m major injury. When I got there he was barely alive and I had to euthanize him to prevent any further suffering. I had to jack the car up so I could even get to where the cat was under the car. Fortunately he went down quickly so his pain wasn’t prolonged. My morbid side took over and I did take some photos, but they are pretty gruesome so I don’t want to post them.

That same week I was called out for ducklings stuck in a storm drain and the mom and dad were waiting on the street for them. There was a fairly large gap between the curb and the drain so I was able to climb into the drain. I warned the lady watching that she may have to call 911 if I got stuck! Fortunately I did not get stuck, but unfortunately only one out of the six ducklings was still alive. I was able to put the live duckling up on the street and the momma duck was content. She and baby began to walk down the street and daddy flew away. Lastly, I was very happy that I was able to get out of the drain without incident! A few weeks later we received a call that a cat was stuck in a storm drain and there I was…back in another drain setting a trap. Fortunately both were pretty clean, but it was definitely not a place I ever thought I would be.

Wild animals seem to get stuck many places, not just in cars and drains. A juvenile deer found out the hard way it no longer could fit through the wrought iron bars of the fence and wound up stuck half way through. Unfortunately it was a short stucco wall topped by the wrought iron so in the deer’s struggle to get out in rubbed its stomach and legs raw. This only caused superficial wounds, but left behind a lot of blood. Not knowing enough about deer the other officer and I loaded the deer in my truck until we could figure out what to do with it. Unfortunately with it being a weekend it made it difficult to get a hold of anyone that could help. After leaving several messages the deer rode around with me back to the shelter and around the city while I completed some other priority calls. So here’s a message to everyone: never cut off an Animal Control truck; you never know what kind of injured animal they could have on board and you don’t want them to have to slam on their brakes :) After several phone calls I finally had a vet call me back and we discussed the deer’s injuries. It was a debate to release the injured deer back into the wild not knowing it’s chance or lack of chance of survival or to euthanize to prevent the inevitable and possible suffering. The vet put me at ease that it would have a substantial chance at a good life so another officer and I got to release it. Now the difficult part, we wanted to release the deer as close to where we found it as possible, but all the access points to the canyon were fenced with at least 6’ fencing. We finally found a low wall in someone’s backyard, but that meant we had to get the deer into the backyard rather than just let it go. So you can see the picture of us trying to “walk” the deer. I guess I should mention that walking this wild deer would be like walking a 60-70 lb dog that has never been leash trained, but more agile, has stronger legs to try and kick you with, and covered in deer ticks. It fought us on the leash and at one point jumped up and landed on its side. That was hard to watch knowing the deer was already injured and stressed.

Then yesterday I got a call for a sick raccoon stuck in a tree. I pulled up and the raccoon was hanging out in the tree. Perfect photo opp! I was not able to catch the raccoon, but fortunately it didn't look sick. Raccoons are pretty good about getting out of those situations on their own, so hopefully he’s down from the tree by now!

And more snakes! I got a double dose today, I’ve never seen rattlesnakes come in multiples, but someone caught two of them today. The gentleman said that he was about to kill the first one when the second one appeared. He and a neighbor confined the snakes in trash cans and called us. They looked like two red diamondbacks. They were good sized rattlesnakes and the first one got transferred into my bucket easily. The second one was the feistiest “adult” rattlesnake I have ever had. When I started to release it from my tongs it jerked quickly out of them and I covered the bucket quickly with the lid. Then when I released them I started with the nicer one and it just stayed still on the ground and stared at me flicking its tongue (pictured). Usually they look for some cover or vegetation to hide in but he was still. Just a little creepy, especially when I still had the mean one to release. I grabbed the 2nd one with my tongs and the rattle was going crazy. I set the snake on the ground and it held the top ¼ or 1/3 of its body up of the ground and faced me as it traveled away from me into a bush. I tried to get a picture of this as I have never seen that before, but it was already hidden in the bush before I could snap a good picture. And during all this the 1st one was continuing to stare at me. Needless to say I let them be…