WildCare Honors Wonderful Moms of All Species
Honor the wonderful moms in your life by making a donation to support WildCare and help us care for orphaned baby animals!
Then send an adorable eCard featuring a wildlife mom and baby to let her know your gift was made!
Donating to support WildCare in honor of Mom is a very special way to say, "I love and appreciate you," while helping the many orphaned wild animals in the Wildlife Hospital right now.
Your donation will help us provide the specialized formula, warmth, nursing nipples and myriad other requirements for raising baby wildlife, and give us the resources we need for all our wildlife patients.
Mallard Duck
Mama Mallard has her job cut out for her as soon as her babies hatch!
Ducklings are born precocial, meaning they can walk, run and even swim very soon after hatching.
The mother Mallard will wait for all of her ducklings to hatch, and then she will lead them off to find water, quacking quietly to keep her fluffy brood in line.
Make way for ducklings!
Orphaned ducklings at WildCare require lots of Romaine lettuce, a warm incubator or brooder to keep them warm, and daily swims in a shallow pool to build their muscles and keep them healthy.
Bobcat
If you've ever had a kitten in your home, you'll appreciate what the mother Bobcat has to deal with!
Bobcat kittens are rambunctious, playful and mischievous, and a litter can have as many as six kittens.
Baby Bobcats stay with their mother, learning to stalk and pounce on prey for about a year before leaving to find their own territory.
When we admit an orphaned Bobcat kitten to WildCare, we rush to call our sister wildlife care centers to find another kitten to pair her with. These smart and playful kittens must grow up with other Bobcats to learn the skills they'll need in the wild.
Songbirds - Tufted Titmice
Like most songbirds, Tufted Titmice are incredible parents, raising their chicks from tiny, pink and helpless nestlings to fully-flighted fledglings in just a few weeks.
Mom and Dad both work tirelessly to bring protein-rich insects back to their brood, and as the chicks get bigger, the pace increases to keep all of those hungry mouths fed.
WildCare's Birdroom admits approximately 1,000 orphaned baby songbirds every year. Our tiniest orphaned nestlings must be fed every 30 minutes from dawn to dusk!
Many of our baby birds come in due to springtime tree trimming and pruning. For this reason we ask people to please "respect the nest" and delay non-emergency tree and yard work until late fall when wildlife babies aren't at risk.
Virginia Opossum
The Virginia Opossum is North America's only marsupial mammal.
Baby opossums are born at only 11 - 13 days old, and each tiny neonate must make his way up the mother's abdomen and into her pouch (marsupium) where he latches onto a nipple.
The babies stay in the pouch for about two months, until they are old enough to climb out and ride on Mom's back.
This mother opossum and babies arrived at WildCare after she had been hit by a car. The family grew up in care until the babies were old enough to be released.
Coyote
Coyotes are wonderful moms (and dads!) and they take the rearing of their pups very seriously.
Coyotes can have up to seven pups in a litter, and once the pups are weaned, it's a full-time job for both parents to hunt for their rambunctious youngsters.
Coyotes are affectionate, playful and encouraging with their pups as they learn to play and hunt.
When a baby coyote is brought to the Wildlife Hospital, we do everything we can to reunite the pup with her family, and it often works!
Northern Spotted Owl
Owls of all species are incredible moms (and dads, too!)
Northern Spotted Owls like to nest in old-growth redwood groves, where they can hunt for their favorite prey, Dusky-footed Woodrats.
Both parents tend to their fluffy chicks, encouraging them, once they're old enough, to hop-fly and "branch" away from the nest to build up their flight muscles.
When a baby owl is brought to the Wildlife Hospital, we do everything we can to reunite the owlet with her family, and it often works! Volunteer tree climbers work with our owl experts to bring the owlet back to the nest, and trained spotters confirm that the parents return to feeding their prodigal nestling.
Black-tailed Deer
Deer are wonderful moms who take excellent care of their young spotted fawns.
Black-tailed Deer usually give birth to twins. Fawns are born precocial, meaning they can walk and even run very soon after birth.
Deer moms recognize that the easiest way for a predator to find her fawns is for her to be nearby, so she instructs her fawns to lie down and stay still and quiet. A still and quiet fawn is a healthy fawn who is doing exactly what his mother told him to do.
When a fawn is brought to the Wildlife Hospital, our first job is to determine if the fawn is actually orphaned or if he has been kidnapped! If the fawn has a full belly, bright eyes, and a pink tongue, we know he's healthy and we have his rescuer bring him back to where he was found, reuniting him with is undoubtedly worried mom.
Cover photo by Dan Pagano