Golden Bough Wildlife, Inc

11/07/2024

I miss you so much it’s unbearable … I believe if she were alive, she would have been visiting me this past month… This hurts more than surgery, more than the recent diagnosis… I love you so much, Sammy😭🙏🏼💔🐿️✨

11/05/2024

🦅❤️‍🩹Answering the call! Literally saved this beautiful raptor!
Communication/answering the call, LITERALLY, can saves lives.
In my career as Wildlife Rehabber, I have rescued, rehabilitated, and triaged thousands of animals…

At times, when people encounter an injured, orphaned, or sick animal they to, traumatized and desperate need guidance.. live voice to help. As a therapist I know this too well.
Hard enough to find instructions/locate a wildlife professional, let alone fumble with a text/email during crises.

On October 17, a hit by car hawk was located in Bridgwater by a hero Samaritan, Zach.
I answered as always, to hearing, I am the only one to answer the phone in dozens of calls placed up and down the state rehab list.
After 5 pm, wildlife centers were closed, and rehabber’s not answering the phone.
We do get exceedingly busy… We all do this without any financial support, some of us are retired, take care of others, have many animals in clinic, children or other jobs. I understand that. However, in the time I was in contact, 24 hrs, since hawk was found, nearly no one returned his call.
I am grateful I could give instructions to secure the animal, triage steps, where to transport/appropriate location for any treatment or testing required next morning.

Without direct advice, this hawk would’ve remained suffering on the road, succumbed to hypothermia, shock, trauma & death.
Instead, it is recovering and will be free!

Since the inception of text & internet, fewer people answer the phone… This can lead to neglect or further harm to both Animal and Samaritan/official/municipal worker/etc.
We can save lives by answering the phone!

I live far from this location, undergoing screening for one illness and about to go in the surgery for a different issue, so my ability to help remotely was critical in this case. Even putting people together for transport or to locate another rehabilitator or specialist in a species is critical as far as I am concerned .
Thank you, Zach , thank you for keeping me in the loop, and thank you New England Wildlife Center (Weymouth location) too! We did it!
, , ,

11/05/2024

🦅❤️‍🩹Answering the call! Literally saved this beautiful raptor!

🦅❤️‍🩹Answering the call! Literally saved this beautiful raptor!
Communication/answering the call, LITERALLY, can saves lives.
In my career as Wildlife Rehabber, I have rescued, rehabilitated, and triaged thousands of animals…

At times, when people encounter an injured, orphaned, or sick animal they too, traumatized and desperate, need guidance.. a live voice to help. As a therapist I know this too well.
Hard enough to find instructions/locate a wildlife professional, let alone fumble with a text/email during crises.

On October 17, a hit by car hawk was located in Bridgwater by a hero Samaritan, Zach.
I answered as always, to hearing, I am the only one to answer the phone in dozens of calls placed up and down the state rehab list.
After 5 pm, wildlife centers were closed, and rehabber’s not answering the phone.
We do get exceedingly busy… We all do this without any financial support, some of us are retired, take care of others, have many animals in clinic, children or other jobs. I understand that. However, in the time I was in contact, 24 hrs, since hawk was found, nearly no one returned his call.
I am grateful I could give instructions to secure the animal, triage steps, where to transport/appropriate location for any treatment or testing required next morning.

Without direct advice, this hawk would’ve remained suffering on the road, succumbed to hypothermia, shock, trauma & death.
Instead, it is recovering and will be free!

Since the inception of text & internet, fewer people answer the phone… This can lead to neglect or further harm to both Animal and Samaritan/official/municipal worker/etc.
We can save lives by answering the phone!

I live far from this location, undergoing screening for one illness and about to go in the surgery for a different issue, so my ability to help remotely was critical in this case. Even putting people together for transport or to locate another rehabilitator or specialist in a species is critical as far as I am concerned .
Thank you, Zach , thank you for keeping me in the loop, and thank you New England Wildlife Center (Weymouth location) too! We did it!
, ,

11/04/2024

Hello Friends, home from the hospital, recovering, but no worries, I’ve been able to phone triage, guide and still help wildlife even being wheeled into surgery.
The wildlife and all animals and their habitat will always be my priority.

I’m glad to be home as we saw our prerelease was broken into over my hospital stay.

Blessings to all of my fellow warriors nursing, treating, overwintering, and caring for our beloved animals.

My deepest thanks to my amazing colleague for immediately stepping in to take my on my babies to her amazing rescue to follow through till release.
, , , , ,

10/12/2024

👏🏽🐥🥰 These are happy cases.. window strike goldfinch came in from Falmouth from a loving family… The warmth and oxygen perked her up almost right away.Thanks to the quick thinking and compassion of this lovely family, she’s on her way home to be with her family , ,

10/11/2024

10/08/2024

😪🙏🏼🌤️🌈🌾🌱🐇☘️💔✨
I really tried sweet brave heart,
Knowing it was going to be a fight for your life every passing minute.

I had to proceed so carefully, the balancing act of swift care, yet not aggressive.
Treatment that must depend on patient response as not to cause more harm.

When you finally warmed fully..warming you with my body, heating pad, incubator, and even supplemental heated cuddle buddies:
(4 hours before you had temp detectable in your extremities, or back & ears), you showed fight.
With fluids, you were able to hop out of the cuddly nest to do what you should, hide.. as a wild bunny should.

Hopefully the pain medicine was helpful.
Though I could not see outward wounds, your belly was tight, your breath revealing illness.

I quietly checked on you through the night, another fluid dose due at 5:30 am.

I went to retrieve the loaded and warmed syringe, but found you outstretched, not cold, but no longer in your bloated body.

I am guessing your tight and swollen belly was a result of painful gasses, possibly blood and fluids, a result from internal injury that would prove to be fatal.

Was this toxicity? Trauma? There was no blood, nothing broken,…skin, fur, bones in tact.

You should have grown to adulthood, and I was hoping you would. You were so close.

Goodbye beautiful baby rabbit.

You were so loved.. by the caring beautiful souls who watched to from tiny baby, grow to a lovely juvinile happy in her own safe yard.

Saw you hurt, took you from the pounding rain, and brought you to me as fast as possible.

How terrifying those hours drenched in freezing rain, lighting crashing as the night curtain dropped. Too weak to move.

I hope you dealt the love. The warmth was soothing and that you passed in some form of peace.

May you find you extended family, clover, sedge, hay and a bounty of vegetables and flowers in eternal peace .. over Rainbow Bridge to Lagomorph Lane.

10/07/2024

What made YOU smile today?? 💜⛈️ 🐥⛲️ 🛁On this lighting stormy day in October, this little finch decided the water bowl, (drinking water for visiting ‘ground’ wildlife), would make a delightfully private spa…to get even wetter, ‘tis mo’better!(Albeit, I have 5 strategically placed fountain/or other designated birdy baths about)Sometimes, your just not in the mood for a Roman bath😁

10/07/2024

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/rustrela-virus-in-cats-symptoms-b2602182.html

First case found in female mountain lion in Colorado last May

10/06/2024

STOP!!!! Seriously, STOP feeding and forcing fluids to baby squirrels when you find them!!! I can't take it anymore!!! Just STOP! I can't take anymore senseless dying....

We lost 5 babies just today because through the last several days people feed them before bringing them. These two are barely holding on and with everything we've done and tried, they won't make it through the night. They will make 7.

They can't breathe. They have aspiration pneumonia because either Pedialyte, water mixed with salt and sugar, or Esbilac that the pet store recommended had gotten in their lungs while they were fed with an eye dropper. STOP IT! We fight so hard for these little bitty kids, trying to save them. We fight trying keep them hydrated...We give them antibiotics and immune boosters while they try their best to breathe in herbals through the nebulizer to ease the pain. We flush their systems trying to remove what was put in. Just please stop.... Just keep them warm. If they're thin and dehydrated, please try to get them here faster. Put them in an uber, call a friend, something, just don't give them anything... I know you're trying to help and do the right thing bc you care and thank you. Use the time you would spend googling what to feed them and driving to the pet store and use it to find a licensed wildlife rehabber as soon as possible. Not Aunt Betty that used to raise squirrels or look for a rehabber tomorrow. These kids are tiny, they need help immediately. It's so much easier to rehydrate and stretch a shrunken tummy than to fight pneumonia. It's like fighting pneumonia in a newborn or a toddler. And for the love of God, don't pass it around letting kids hold them! Not only are they not always gentle, even unintentionally, but they touch tons of things and don't wash their hands as much as adults. They're filled with germs, just like we were as kids.

Also, don't leave the babies outside over night. Once it gets dark, mom goes to sleep and won't wake up until the morning. Same thing with trying to reunite, if you leave those kids on the ground, they're sitting ducks for cats and other predators and are more apt to get stung by those vicious ants. They also need heat! Bring them inside with a heat source and put them in a dark quiet place- away from your pets and children. Don't hold them- we're predators! If you're reuniting, they need some type of material, a box and a warmed rice sock, then duct tape the box as high as you can reach to that tree. And LEAVE!! Don't watch! If you're watching for mom, she's watching for you!

I'm not trying to slam anyone. I'm trying to teach, even if I'm doing a horrible job at it. We pour our hearts and souls into these guys and when they die, it breaks our hearts, especially when it was unintentional. My heart is broken.... Please tell someone who has found a baby animal, bird or mammal, not to feed. Not to give water unless their eyes are open and they're warm, then to offer a bowl of water. Just to keep them on low heat and find someone who knows what they're doing...Please.... please......

10/06/2024

Regardless of the few who publicly ask you to pay their ‘salary’ through donations, the majority of us are financially strapped and sharing our home, and grocery, medical, gas and life with no ‘budget’ or salary to do our work .. saving wildlife, educating the public, nursing the sick and hopefully its habitat.
Please read the well put description of what wildlife rehabbers REALLY do. We are not bucking for bucks, or media, a show on Animal Planet.
We are quietly helping callers who are desperate in the middle of an overwhelming crisis.. even when we are ill.

A man said to me, “Oh, you’re a wildlife rehabilitator? That’s cool. how much do you make?”
“What do I make?”
I make terrified creatures less afraid. I sooth an animal with her pain and help her with keeping her babies after she’s been struck by a careless driver. And if she is killed because she dare sought refuge in your tool shed or deck. I nurse and care for her surviving babies in order to return them to the environment when they are old enough. Yes, their environment, our environment.
I seek to make children experience sympathy and respect for another living being.
I make the world a calm , silent place for the last moments of life for each animal that is dying , like the squirrel in this this photo , quietly dying on my chest taking his finals breath after they have given up. It is there right to choose to give up the fight and I respect their choice, I feel and know what they feel.
I make every effort to heal an animal’s ripped off skin, puncture bites, gun shot by someone who thought it was funny to see an animal suffer..
I can make you better understand the natural world and we must all learn to exist in.
What do I make?
I make nothing from my state, county or city. My payday is watching a baby skunk catch his first grasshopper at the release site, watch the once tiny squirrel run up the branches for the first time or watch in awe as my baby bunnies see the grass for the first time.
I am now71 years old and have been practicing wildlife rehab since 1988. First as a bird rehabber for many years. I have to say it left me a shell of who I once was. I was diagnosed with PTSD strictly from all the horrors I have seen from all wildlife injuries. I am praying for guidance on how to move forward. Rescue is who I am -not just what I do and God will lead me on the right path for the babies, I promise you I will not leave them unattended without a system in place. If you would like to donate to our rescue, there is a Donate tab at the very top of the page. We are are an IRS Tax Exempt Charity.

10/05/2024

Update Sammy Sam -O
This picture of Sammy when she came to the clinic injured near Sept 20, but nowhere near as progressed as the infection became….
I briefly saw her yesterday, noticing it was not Eleanor the bully hanging off of a feeder… but Sammy.
After emoted she limped away.. now I understand..She must be desperately hungry (as she used to come to be multiple times daily) staying with me.

She is alive but struggling. She does not want to be ‘known’ to the bully…
she was afraid when I called her, the other would come running and chase her off violently .
The tyrant, Eleanor has taken over the yard , and the nest box that I put up for Sammy months ago she dares not come into site when the ogre is around and will chase her perhaps injuring her further or making her susceptible to another predator… I am grateful she is alive however, Eleanor has babies in her box and clearly dug- in for the winter😪

09/29/2024

🌥️🐿️🌳
Happy Squirrely Sunday all!
This pick is not Sammy.. but it might be one of her babies… I did not see her yesterday because of Noise in the yard but she popped up this morning… bully Eleanor, chased her off, but her foot is looking better than it did two days ago (for those of you who were worried)… Including them me!

09/27/2024

Sammy came twice today for very brief periods… I am very worried because by the second part of the afternoon, her foot did not look just pink with black where the wounds are drying up, but it was becoming purple {red. image #3)… I’m hoping to God it is not necrotic😪❤️‍🩹🐿️🙏🏼