I hate to be that person but I’m a vet blog so I’m gonna use this as a teaching opportunity. I’m super appreciative of people who will go out of their way to help wildlife, but it’s honestly really frustrating (and dangerous!) when people bring us wildlife like this. Like we’ll have people pull through our pharmacy drive thru and just try to hand us a loose hawk through the window and I just…no. Please, no. Especially raptors, who can do serious damage to you, or can be handled incorrectly and have serious damage done to them. I could go on a whole rant about how many of the cute animal rescue videos out there are honestly Real Bad, but that’s a rant for another time.
So yeah, please don’t handle wildlife with your bare hands, especially raptors! Welding gloves for larger birds, or garden gloves for smaller birds can help protect you, and you’d be amazed at what boxes and towels can do. Not only does it protect you, but it helps keep an animal from struggling and hurting themselves. Handling a raptor (or any bird) roughly can break their feathers. If their feathers become damaged that interferes with flight, temperature protection, and water proofing. All things that will make their stay in a rehab facility longer. But if you handle this wrong, it could break you:
Whereas if you handle this wrong, you could break it:
Broken legs and wings can and do happen from handling small raptors and other wildlife incorrectly. Not to mention if we look at mammals, now you have a rabies and other zoonotic disease risk. If you handle a raccoon and it bites you, that’s considered potential rabies exposure. Not only do you now need a post exposure series, that raccoon needs to be euthanized and rabies tested. Plus that raccoon could spread distemper or parvo to your pets.
The other big issue is that stress can absolutely kill wild animals. When people have wild animals loose in their car, or handle them roughly, it can be deadly. Being carried bare handed, into a building and through a lobby past barking dogs and gawking owners is extremely stressful on an animal. Wildlife, especially birds, are shockingly fragile about stress. I’m not trying to throw shade at OP, I just want to discourage others from doing this and explain why it’s a problem. Other problems with grabbing them bare handed are that it often involves a lot of chasing and missed grabs, which again, is super stressful.
So what you can and should do instead is when possible, contact the clinic beforehand. Some wildlife facilities may have volunteers or staff that will come and help catch animals. And if not, they can help walk you through how to do it safely. Like I get that if you’re driving down the road and see a hawk get by a car you aren’t necessarily gonna be able to go home and grab supplies, but a lot of times we’re getting wildlife found in people’s yards. And if you have to look up the address of the clinic anyway, why not take a second to call them to make sure you’re being as safe and efficient as possible? If you have a towel, tossing it over a wild bird will usually stop them from moving, and it also puts another barrier between you and them. It also keeps them from being able to flap around too much. That makes it easier to get them in a box or pet carrier. And please, put them in a box or pet carrier. We don’t want to be handed an angry owl that had to be wrangled out of your backseat.
