Foster Care: A Vital Tetris Game During Baby Season

Walking into WildCare’s hospital right now, there’s one word buzzing around the halls: squirrels. Over the past few weeks, the number of these tiny patients arriving has been staggering. Between July and August alone, more than 80 squirrels have been admitted to our hospital, many of them orphaned or fallen from the nest.

Baby squirrels need a lot of attention, including the youngest neonates who require feedings as often as every three hours, around the clock!. With a small staff and high patient load, providing every patient that level of care inside the hospital is not realistic. That is where our network of specially trained wildlife Foster Care Volunteers comes in. The role requires a minimum of one year of experience volunteering in WildCare’s hospital and/or prior experience with the species. Trained Foster Care Volunteers take patients home and give them the individualized care they need, away from the hospital’s busy pace.

Photo Credit: Melanie Piazza

This group of Eastern Gray Squirrels are being taken care of in the home of a trained Foster Care Volunteer until time for their release. 

Arriving at WildCare means more than receiving  medical treatment. It also means finding a new family to grow up with. Squirrels need to be raised in groups so they learn normal squirrel behavior from each other, huddle together for warmth, and avoid becoming too comfortable around people, all of which are essential for a successful release back into the wild. 

Placing squirrels in foster care is like a never ending game of chess. It requires enough trained team members and tracking who can take which age group (for example every 3 hour feeds around the clock in a tiny kennel vs. three times a day feeds in a large walk-in cage) and for how long before the squirrels need to be graduated to someone else’s care (for example, does a foster volunteer have to leave for a week to attend a wedding). With over 100 baby squirrels in care of various ages, and a handful of foster volunteers of various abilities, coordinating all of it is enough to make anyone’s head spin.

That is why our different species Foster Care Team leaders, like Melanie  Director of Animal Care  who runs the squirrel team, and our veterinarian Dr. Juliana Sorem who runs the raccoon team keep detailed, puzzle-like spreadsheets holding all the knowledge needed to run this intricate foster system. Those spreadsheets are updated multiple times a day as new babies come into the hospital, and existing babies graduate to different stages of care.

Photo Credit: Melanie Piazza

Caring for a baby squirrel can take weeks to  months before release, depending on the age at which they come in. This is why having fosters is so important. Having a dedicated network of specially trained volunteers allows patients to get the dedicated care needed, while allowing our hospital to stay available for other patients. 

This Eastern Gray Squirrel arrived at WildCare on July 15 as a fragile infant weighing just 85 grams, his eyes still closed. He had fallen from his nest and suffered a crushing injury to his abdomen after being caught by a dog. Our medical staff stabilized him and placed him with a foster volunteer who specializes in critical care cases that same night.

The early weeks were a slow climb. He carried a bruise on his belly from the injury for some time, and it took weeks before the skin there fully healed. By the end of July, though, his eyes had opened, and he was hopping around and playing with his cage mate.

From there, his progress was steady, and sometimes funny to watch. He grew braver by the day, devouring avocados and nuts and moving confidently around his enclosure, though he once froze in place after being set on a high platform, apparently more comfortable on the ground than up high. By mid-August, he had a cage mate his own age, was eating a full range of natural foods, and had grown into what one caregiver called a “healthy, big guy.”

By early September, at 378 grams and an estimated ten weeks old, he had a full coat, healthy teeth, and had become wild and hard to catch, exactly the behavior our team wants to see in a squirrel headed back to the wild. He is expected to be ready for released in late September, once his slightly younger cage companion catches up.

Two and a half months of steady, patient care is what it takes to raise an orphaned and injured squirrel into a wild, independent animal ready for release. It would not be possible without the dedication of our Foster Care volunteers.