Bidwell Wildlife Rehabilitation

30/08/2025

Why is this vocal little baby raccoon just hanging out in a cardboard box lid? He’s waiting for his first bath! This cute little boy was brought to us on Tuesday by our friends at Chico Animal Control.

He was found near Big Chico Creek, and he was not in good shape. His mama and siblings were nowhere in sight, and even worse, he was covered in fly eggs and fleas. 💔 An infestation of fly eggs is called fly strike/myasis, and it is bad news. 🚫🪰🚫

After a bath, lots of grooming with a flea comb, and some Pedialyte, he was happy to sleep soundly on a nice warm heating pad while waiting for his next adventure. 🦝❤️

27/08/2025

27/08/2025

So far this year, 2025, we have had 851 wildlife contacts???
33 Fawns
89 Opossums
4 Coyotes
14 Raccoons
24 Grey Fox
4 Red Fox
AND 174 Squirrels!
This is just SOME of the mammals.
Does not even touch on the hundreds of raptors and songbirds we take in!

14/07/2025

Wow

13/07/2025

Keep your distance

14/06/2025

Please read and share. May be posted from another state but applies to ALL wildlife!!!

Please take this seriously:
Please please understand that when we give instructions/advice, there’s a reason behind every word. If you find injured, orphaned, or sick wildlife, do not handle/pet. Do not feed. Do not give water. If you have the animal contained, put it in a ventilated box/container and keep it in a dark quiet area away from pets and people. Then reach out for help. Don’t do anything else unless instructed to do so by a rehabber…not your neighbor, not Google, or someone who raised a chipmunk once, but a rehabber or wildlife professional.

Today someone who reached out to GWN for help with a rabies vector species was bitten by the animal. It seemed docile so he reached in to place a bowl of water in the crate and it bit him. GWN had to contact environmental health and the animal was picked up by animal control. It will be euthanized and sent off for rabies testing. If it is positive, the person will go through a series of expensive shots. This is protocol for any RVS animal that bites someone, whether it is exhibiting any symptoms or not.

Do NOT touch a rabies vector species without gloves!! The most common animals to carry rabies are bats, raccoons, skunks, & foxes but this doesn’t mean they all have rabies. All animals can carry mites, fleas, & diseases so wear gloves anyway. And unless you are actually Snow White, a wild animal that approaches you needs help. Proceed with caution and follow the advice of wildlife professionals.

Facts: Putting water in a birds mouth can literally cause them to choke to death. Not all birds eat worms. Domesticating a fawn by bringing it in your home to “help it” is a death sentence. If you give a baby squirrel or bunny the wrong kind of milk, you can make it so ill that it will take days for a rehabber to stabilize. Baby opossums do not suckle; they are attached to a feeding tube inside their mom so you can’t feed with a bottle. Some animals require rehydration before they can be fed. Turtles live in a 1 mile radius their entire lives. Baby birds can get food lodged in their throat and suffocate. If you use the wrong kind of syringe/nipple and feed a baby animal too fast or too much, it will aspirate and die. Ducklings can drown. You cannot judge if it’s a venomous snake by its head or pupil shape. The animal that you just found doesn’t “like you”, he’s in shock and afraid to move. Baby animals can’t have breast milk. Everything we tell you is for a reason.

If you’re still reading this, thank you. Today was a scary day. We hope our human friend has a clean bill of health. We ❤️ our wildlife and we ❤️ our wildlife loving humans. Today’s incident was avoidable. This post isn’t to criticize; it’s to teach someone who may not know so we can avoid another incident tomorrow.

xoxo, GWN
The Georgia Wildlife Network

Photo is of another raccoon who also sadly had to be euthanized last week. 😞 This work really sucks some days.

01/06/2025

It’s a big day for us here at BWR – please help us wish a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our amazing board president, Sandy! ❤️🐿️🦝🐣🦉🦅❤️ (and it’s a milestone birthday today!)

Sandy works so very hard to keep our little organization up and running. We absolutely could not do this without her, and we are so grateful for all that she does. Her whole life is about helping animals, people, and our community.

Thank you Sandy! Happy Birthday from all the wild critters of our community! ❤️❤️❤️

30/05/2025

It’s going to hit 100 degrees in the valley today and tomorrow! 🥵☀️

If you have wildlife in your neighborhood, they will love you for putting out some bowls of water for them! ❤️🐿️💧

19/05/2025

Hello BWR fans! We have a message today, particularly for tree trimming companies and anyone else who might be adept at climbing trees.

On an infrequent but regular basis, we receive calls about birds that have fallen from nests, and the nests are too far up in the tree for the babies to be re-nested. Although we can attempt to re-nest with a makeshift nest, putting the baby back into the original nest is always preferable!

Tree trimming companies (especially those who we have helped in the past with wildlife that has fallen from trees while you were on the job!) – we’d love to ask for your help when this happens! Is there anyone who’s willing to say that they could potentially help us with re-nesting from time to time? 🤞🌳🌲🦉

Tag any tree trimming companies that you might know! ❤️🐣

16/05/2025

Much like these sleepy baby possums, we have a dream. Our dream is to help as many wildlife as we possibly can. In order to do this, we need a center!

Believe it or not, Bidwell Wildlife Rehab currently does not have a center. Instead, all rehabbing is done out of our volunteers’ homes. It’s not ideal, but we make it work!

In the long run, though, we definitely need a center. Somewhere where the public can drop animals off, where volunteers can be trained in the most state of the art methods of saving wildlife, and where we can care for the nearly 1,000 wildlife that come our way each year. 

If you or anyone you know has land that they’d like to donate, a large sum of money that might be available to us (hey, we can dream can’t we? 😂🐿️🐣) let us know!  Send any info to us at [email protected]. Let’s do it for the wildlife! ❤️❤️❤️