When you’re known as the “animal person” among your friends, you tend to get some interesting phone calls. Just the other week, one of my kindhearted friends called me because she had found a baby bird in her yard and wanted to know what she should do. After a couple of pointers, she was able to help the little guy on his way.

It’s the time of year when baby birds are leaving their nests, so chances are good that either you or someone you know will come across a little tweeter hopping around on the ground. As tempting as it is to rush in and scoop the baby up, it’s important to remember that most fledglings don’t need our help. They’re probably just going through “flight training”—the period of time when they’re on the ground and learning how to fly—and their parents are likely nearby, keeping a close watch on the little one.

So before you get involved, make sure the birdie truly is injured or in danger. If not, your well-meaning “help” will do more harm than good! The following are some questions to consider to determine if the baby really needs help and some tips on what to do if the baby does:

• What do the bird’s feathers look like? Fledglings who are going through flight training have a mixture of fuzzy down and new feathers at first. Their backs often look fuzzy, while their wings are beginning to get longer pinions, or flight feathers. If the bird is fuzzy on the back and has feathered wings, or is mostly feathered, leave him or her alone.

• If the baby is completely fuzzy, or totally naked, he or she needs help back up to the nest (don’t worry, your scent won’t keep the parents away). If you can’t reach the nest, make one from a berry basket, kitchen strainer, or small plastic container with holes punched in the bottom and filled with shredded tissue. Hang it in a sheltered spot near the original nest.

• Is the bird injured? Flyers in training hop about, take short, stilted flights of a foot or two, and quite often fall flat on their chins. You may even see the initial dive as the rookie leaves the nest and falls to the ground.

• Do you see any blood or broken bones? If you see blood, a wing that can’t be folded properly or doesn’t move at all, or an easily visible broken leg (as opposed to the usual hopping movements of a bird this age), contact your local animal shelter or wildlife rehabilitator immediately. Keep in mind, though, that babies often tire easily or sprain their muscles when they first start. They will then hold quite still while they rest. If after 30 minutes to an hour, the baby is still lethargic or immobile, he or she needs your help.

• If you see any baby animal who is obviously injured or whose mother has been killed, call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. Your local animal shelter can probably provide their phone numbers, or you can check out our Web page on locating a rehabilitator.

• Keep in mind that it’s illegal in most states to care for birds unless you have a rehabilitation permit, so please contact a wildlife rehabilitation center and transport the animal for care as soon as possible.

For more tips on how to help baby birds and other wildlife, please visit our wildlife emergencies page. Thanks for being “tweet” to baby birds!

mo.gov / cc

Spring is here, and that means that baby wild animals are starting to pop up everywhere you look. During their first few weeks of life, many of these little ones might, unfortunately, be separated from their mothers because of treacherous weather conditions, fall out of their nests, or be stalked by cats who are allowed to roam outdoors. Guardians should keep cats indoors, which is the safest option both for kitty and for wildlife.

It can often be difficult to tell if a situation is normal or if it’s an emergency and interference is necessary. Always be sure that your help is needed before intervening. If you see a young animal, it is important to resist the temptation to involve yourself unless the animal is clearly sick, hurt, orphaned, or in immediate danger—you may do more harm than good by removing a young animal from the care of his or her parents. Check out our tips for determining if an animal needs help.

It’s also a good idea to keep an emergency rescue kit in your car and a handy list of phone numbers for your local animal control agency and licensed wildlife rehabilitators. If you are assisting an animal after typical business hours and are unable to reach anyone, you can usually call your local police or sheriff’s department for assistance.

Keep the following items in your vehicle at all times so you’ll be ready to respond if you encounter an animal in distress:

• Carrier (medium-sized), cardboard or plastic
• Towel or blanket (with no strings or loops)
• Net
• Leash
• Broom (to gently coax an animal into a carrier or away from a dangerous area)
• Wet and dry cat food
• Directions to local animal control bureaus, 24-hour emergency veterinary hospitals, and wildlife rehabilitators

For more detailed instructions on what to do if you find a baby mammal or baby bird, please check out the National Wildlife Rehabilitation Council’s Web site.

Humane Mouse Trap / PETA Catalog

The following post is a guest post by PETA Files writer, Amy Elizabeth.

Is it just me, or does killing uninvited houseguests seem a little unfriendly? After all, you wouldn’t use a cruel trap on your annoying neighbor if she showed up for an unexpected visit, so why use them on mice? Here are the top five reasons to be nice to mice:

1. Glue is for crafts, not creatures. Gruesome glue traps cause animals to slowly dehydrate or suffocate to death. Many mice become so desperate that they chew off their own limbs in an attempt to free themselves.

2. Poison isn’t pleasant. Poisoning causes a painful death to mice and any cats, dogs, or other animals who either ingest the poison by mistake or eat the bodies of rodents who have been poisoned.

3. Snap traps can prolong suffering. All mammals, regardless of species, have the same capacity to experience pain and terror. And snap traps, which are not always released on target, can cause plenty of both.

4. Violence is in vain. When mice are killed, more will move into the newly vacant niche. Effective, humane methods of rodent control do not target the animals themselves, but rather, they target what attracts animals to certain areas. Mouse-proofing your house is as easy as denying mice access to food and a place to nest.

5. Mice are nice. Friendly and highly intelligent, mice are just as smart as dogs and can even recognize their names and respond when called. Much like us, mice are highly social creatures. They become attached to each other, and they love their families. Mice enjoy playing, wrestling, and sleeping curled up together.

Mice and rats are often forced into human environments when their natural habitats are lost to development. We owe it to these gentle, interesting animals to do all that we can to peacefully coexist with them. So the next time these little rodents raid your ramen noodles, be kind—live-trap and release them outside .

Although they are equipped with fur coats, dogs and other animals can still suffer from frostbite, exposure, and dehydration when water sources freeze. Cold temperatures mean extra hardship for “backyard” dogs, who often go without adequate food, water, shelter, or medical care. When the temperatures nosedive and you start piling on the layers, it’s also important to remember your wild neighbors.

• Take animals inside. Puppies and kittens, elderly animals, small animals, and dogs with short hair, including pointers, beagles, pit bulls, Rottweilers, and Dobermans, are particularly susceptible to the elements. Short-haired animals will also benefit from warm sweaters or coats.

• Don’t allow your cat or dog to roam freely outdoors. In cold weather, cats sometimes climb under the hoods of cars to be near warm engines and are badly injured or killed when the car is started. (To help prevent this, bang loudly on the hood of your car before starting the engine.) Animals can also become disoriented when there is snow or ice on the ground.

• Increase animals’ food rations in cold weather. In cold weather, animals burn more calories to keep warm. Also, be sure that animals are free of internal parasites, which can rob them of vital nutrients.

• Keep an eye out for strays. Take unidentified animals inside until you can find their guardians, or take them to an animal shelter. If strays are wild or unapproachable, provide food, water, and shelter (stray cats will appreciate a small doghouse filled with warm bedding), and call your local humane society for assistance in trapping them and getting them indoors.

• Clean off your dogs’ or cats’ legs, feet, and stomachs after they come in from the snow. Salt and other chemicals can make animals sick if they are ingested while the animals are cleaning themselves.

• When you see dogs left outdoors, provide them with proper shelter. Doghouses should be made of wood (metal is a poor insulator) and positioned in a sunny location during cold weather. Raise the house several inches off the ground, and put a flap over the door to keep out cold drafts. Use straw for bedding (rugs and blankets can get wet and freeze).

• Provide a source of water for wildlife, who may have a difficult time finding drinking water during winter months. Break the ice at least twice a day.

• Buy nontoxic antifreeze made with propylene glycol instead of ethylene glycol, which can kill animals even in small doses. Safe brands include Sierra and Prestone Lowtox. Animals are attracted to antifreeze for its sweetness, so clean up spills quickly, and buy brands with the bittering agent denatonium benzoate.

• Give wildlife a boost. While it’s best to provide natural sources of food and shelter for birds by planting flowers and trees that produce seeds and berries, birds may need an extra boost during the winter, when they are burning extra calories to keep warm. Use a blend of seeds that includes oiled sunflower seeds, which are high in calories. Remember to stop the feeding when the weather warms up. An artificial food source causes wild animals to congregate in unnaturally large numbers in areas where they may be welcomed by some, but not others, and it can also make them easy targets for predators. Eventually, they may lose their ability to forage for food on their own entirely.

• If you venture out to feed the ducks at a nearby pond or the gulls at the beach, do not feed them bread or corn. These foods don’t have enough nutritional value for wintertime eating. The best thing to feed ducks and gulls during the winter is dry dog or cat food. The birds love it, and the fat in it will help them stay warm as well as replenishing the water-repellent oil in their feathers.

hammielover123 / cc

Mice. Oh so cute. If only they didn’t leave their little evidence everywhere. Last year, a little mouse got into my apartment. I heard some chewing in the walls at night for quite a while but couldn’t figure out exactly where it was coming from. I went out of town for a weekend, and when I came home I saw little pieces of cat food on the kitchen floor. This was very curious, considering that I do not have a cat.

What had happened was that this little mouse had chewed through the wall in my pantry while I was gone and went straight for the emergency bag of cat food I keep on hand for when I find strays. I quickly cleaned up the little mess that he had made, and I searched for the point of entry. I found his little escape route and I plugged up the hole with some steel wool. I then proceeded to clean my whole kitchen with peppermint-scented soap and essential peppermint oil (mice are not fans of peppermint!).

Thinking that I had dealt with this issue, I went to sleep right after baking some vegan apple-raisin muffins—leaving the muffins out on the counter to cool. I woke up in the morning, ready to have a muffin for breakfast, and—all the muffin tops had been eaten! This was so cute and so frustrating all at the same time―all I could think of were his tiny little hands holding the crumbs and chewing incessantly on the treasure that he had discovered as I slept.

If you build it, they will come, and things can get a bit exasperating if you don’t solve the problem completely. Over the next couple of days, I did a thorough check of my whole apartment and found two more holes that he was using to go in and out. I sealed those up, and things have been mouse-free ever since.

In the event that a little mouse or several mice find their way inside your home, check out our humane tips for making your house mouse-proof.

Cruel methods are never necessary―please also take a moment to ask Lowe’s to stop selling glue traps.

evilkid / cc

Last night, I got sucked into watching a few documentaries with overly dramatic titles about insects. I sat in awe for nearly three hours watching ants raise caterpillar larvae as their own, spiders weave thick squares of web to use in a tool-like fashion to capture their prey from the rain-forest floor, and mayflies and cicadas as they shed their skin and emerged from the water and dark underground to start the last and most brief part of their life.

Insects develop complex relationships, care for their young, and work as teams much as we do. When you see a spider or ant running across the floor, it’s likely that they have somewhere important to be in order to complete something that they set out to do that day, just as we run errands and have order in our daily lives. However, often when we see them, we treat their presence as an intrusion, and many people even resort to inhumane methods for dealing with these encounters.

Cockroaches probably bear the brunt of our negative reactions more heavily than most insects. While you certainly don’t want your living space to turn into a cockroach haven, there are humane and affordable methods for discouraging them. Inhumane poisons and traps will do nothing for long-term control and will have you spending more time and money than solving the problem once and for all in an effective and humane manner. With a little time, you can have your environment cockroach-free, and no one has to get hurt. The following is a strategy that I used a couple of years ago, and it worked perfectly.

First and foremost, you must work on prevention. Keep all dishes washed, take trash out frequently, and make sure that unrefrigerated companion animal food is tightly sealed and put away when your animal companion is not eating. Keep countertops wiped down with a vinegar-and-water solution, and sweep, mop, and vacuum regularly. Now for the actual cockroachproofing, you will need the following:

• Non-toxic white glue
• Caulking in either white or clear (available from hardware stores)
• Stoppers for all your drains that do not already have built-in stoppers
• Dried whole bay leaves

Start with one room at a time, and begin with places where you have seen cockroaches. Put stoppers in all your drains—sinks and bathtub―when not in use to prevent roaches from coming in via your drainpipes. Also be sure to repair leaky faucets and pipes, as roaches are attracted to water.

Seal up all gaps between floorboards, under counters, around sink plumbing and windowsills, and near fuse boxes. For larger gaps, use the caulking, and for smaller gaps, use the glue. This will take some time, but if you just work on it for a little while each day, you will have it finished in no time.

Add dried bay leaves to your kitchen drawers and cabinets, too, as they are a great natural repellent and will leave your kitchen smelling wonderful!

P.S. If after your cockroachproofing you find any little guys who got stuck inside, help them out and use something like this to humanely remove them from your living space. Click here for more tips too.