Mickey, the gentle black squirrel I got as a patient last week, seems to be recovering nicely, though is still a bit off. She came from a community garden in Queens suffering from a malocclusion, swollen thumbs, mites and a wobbly posture. After I clipped her teeth–which I am totally proud of–she eats voraciously and messily.
Two good signs for her recovery today. She’s finally taking some interest in grooming herself. That’s good because if she doesn’t clean herself up, I have to and neither of us like that. She’s not used to eating with only bottom teeth and she’s a huge slob. She can only have soft foods like peanut butter, avocado, banana and honey.
The second good sign is that she’s chattering her teeth at me. In squirrel talk, she’s telling me that she’s a bad ass. And probably tired of me wiping her face off.
Now she just has to grow some top teeth and maybe close up that gaping hole in her chin and she can go back in the wild.
Where to Go to See Special SquirrelsPlenty of Wildlife Lives in NYC. Found Out Where
To see more animals go to animaltourism.com
I’ve been a widlife rehabilitator for a while but somehow managed to avoid the standard but scary procedure in treating squirrels known as teeth clipping. Squirrel teeth continually grow and get worn down against each other–unless something happens so they don’t line up right. Then someone has to clip them.
Named Mickey by her friends at the Sunnyside Park Community Garden, this sweet, adult, black, female squirrel had bottom teeth growing into her top gums. Peter Richter, who caught her and carried her in, said she had a bad fall a couple months ago. Until then she had been friendly to people and a ferocious defender of her territory from other squirrels.
In what seemed like medieval dentistry, I got some electronics clippers from Ace. I held the extraordinarily cooperative patient in a fleece. I don’t think I’m as compliant when I get my teeth cleaned. I could be brave because with her teeth in this condition, she couldn’t bite me anyway. Or bite anything. She could only lick food and water out of the side of her mouth.
Then, snap, just like that, it was done. It really was just as easy as the YouTube videos claimed. She enthusiastically started eating an apple. Before I clipped her teeth she could only lick food out of the side of her mouth, so it was a success.
She still has a long way to go–a hole in her chin, no top teeth for now–but I think she is well
Keep reading Medievel Squirrel Denistry on My Kitchen Table
 Manhattan raccoons, faced with an epidemic of rabies, are going to get trapped, vaccinated and tagged (so they don’t have to go through the ordeal a second time.) There was a mild panic this winter in the city as rabies started showing up in the raccoons of Central Park and upper Manhattan.
People may have panicked more if they realized how many raccoons really live in this densely packed city. The New York City Health Department has found 49 rabid raccoons in Manhattan, mostly in the top 13 blocks of Central Park. (Oddly, the state isn’t keeping up.) As a wildlife rehabber I get calls from people who just spot raccoons in the city. The raccoons are fine, but people assume something is terribly wrong if a raccoon is living here.
That’s a relief to animal lovers who feared they’d just be rounded up and euthanized–an animal control strategy that usually doesn’t work because new animals just move into the undefended territory.
If you go on an owl walk at dusk in summer in the North Woods of Central Park, you’ll be amazed at how many raccoons you’ll see. They’ll be sleepily climbing out of tree cavities and holes between boulders to start their day.
American pets don’t get rabies much anymore because they get vaccines. The northeast has a huge population of rabid raccoons thanks to hunters who imported them from dealers, John Hadidian, head of the Humane Society of the United State‘s Urban Wildlife program. The
Keep reading Central Park Raccoons to Get Rabies Shots
Brown pelicans, just removed from the Endangered Species List three months ago, are getting slammed by California’s polluted storms. These swimming birds can cope with rain far more gracefully than whiny Los Angelenos have been. But the water is so polluted that they have to be treated like oil spill victims. The International Bird Rescue Research Center had 80 pelicans by 7 p.m. Friday and expects they’ll be treating 100 hypothermic birds this weekend.
There’s a bit of callous reaction to the brown pelican‘s plight. One comment on the Washington Post site said it was just the “circle of life.” But they aren’t dying because of storms; they’re freezing because the contaminants break down their natural waterproofing and insulation.
“Brown pelicans tend to feed and congregate near harbors and river mouths where nutrients from the runoff attract fish and other creatures. Pelicans can easily become dirty from pollution in these areas and can lose their waterproofing. The current massive runoff from the storms has brought even more grease, car oil sheen, fish oils and other forms of surface pollution into the coastal areas where these birds feed,” says executive director Jay Holcomb in a letter to supporters.
“We wash them just as if there had been an oil spill. We use dish-washing liquid,” spokesman Paul Kelway told the AP. It takes about a week and $500 of treatment for the birds to recover from hypothermia. The center has responded to 150 oil spills around the world and treated
Keep reading LA Rain So Polluted Pelicans Have to Be Treated Like Oil Spill Victims
A big difference in the two leading plans for 33,000 wild horses now held by the federal government is whether mares and geldings may mix. The issue may come down to undescended horse testicles. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s plan wouldn’t let geldings mix with mares, who would also be on birth control. Madeleine Pickens’ plan would let the geldings run free and form normal social groups.
There are plenty of other things that divide the plans–location, price, management–but whether the wild horses get to live in their natural herds is a big sticking point for horse advocates. Suzanne Roy, program director for In Defense of Animals, calls it the “the Sala-Zoo plan.” “Most people can drive half an hour or 10 minutes to see horses,” she says. “These horses are wild in name only.” What makes these horses special is the wild, natural lives they lead, she says.
I asked Madeleine Pickens whether geldings at her proposed Mustang Monument would be able to mix. “They’d be able to roam freely and form bachelor bands,” she said.
BLM spokesman Tom Gorey told me this week that they would have to keep the sexes segregated because you “can’t take a chance that the gelding might not have worked. There is always a possibility.”
Say what? I was always amazed when dog people would ask if my obviously neutered male dog Jolly was neutered. The testicles are either intact or removed. Either way, it’s highly visible.
But Gorey referred me to
Keep reading Are Undescended Horse Testicles Getting in the Way of a Sanctuary?
 Wednesday we lost our great friend and incredible dog, Jolly. He was pushing 16 (by some calculations, 105 in human years) and in the last few weeks, after his longtime girlfriend Shadow died, all of his systems seemed to fall apart.
Even though it’s been a long time since he was able to hear us and run to the door—or just awkwardly block the door by napping in front of it—our home and life is unimaginably empty and quiet without him. But that’s the price you pay for having a sweet, devoted, goofy, clever, complicated dog like Jolly.
Jolly came to me 13 years ago as a foster dog after spending a couple years in a shelter, Mighty Mutts. He was a huge scaredy cat, but eventually he came to believe me when I told him, as I always did, that he was the best dog in the world. He was the king of the dog run and East Village and knew that he was handsome, smart and well-loved. After spending years in isolation, he especially loved friends. “Friend” was just one of the many words he knew. He loved his mommy, daddy and longtime girlfriend Shadow most of all. Shadow was at first the only dog he would play with; she remained the only dog he would roughhouse with, kiss or let enjoy his treats, toys or Jollymobile. But he loved being part of an extended family and community, his aunts, friends of the dog run, street and
Keep reading World Loses Its Best Dog Ever
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