There are two wild mammal rehabilitators in the Florida Keys. Both are currently working under my licenses. They tend to all the sick, injured and orphaned squirrels, opossums, raccoons and bats. Karen Dettmann of Ark Angels has been voluntarily doing this out of her home in Tavernier for almost 30 years and Nancy and Ritchie Chatelaine of Raccoon Rescue have been voluntarily doing this out of their home in Big Pine Key for over 3 years now. Thank goodness! If it weren't for these kind folk the Marathon Wild Bird Center would probably be known as the Marathon Wildlife Center.
We specialize in the rescue, rehab and release of sick, injured and orphaned wild birds, but...we are also the Middle Keys ambassadors for small mammals! What that means is that if there is a mammal in need within our established boundaries we deal with it. Luckily, though, we can usually arrange transport to either of our two fellow mammal rehabbers within 24 hours and unload the patients pretty quickly. We love helping the mangie, snarly adults, but also the ability to hand them off... The babies are, as all babies are, adorable! We'd love to tend to them ourselves except that there is a knack to getting them to take a bottle after they've become used to their moms' nipples (which, for both parties involved, is at least a 3 day frustrating transition) and, let's face it, we have enough to do with the birds as it is!
Today the MWBC responded to a call of two baby raccoons tucked away in the corner of an outdoor tiki bar/picnic table pavilion at a local marina. Not the normal place a momma coon would leave her babies and not the time of day she would normally even be out foraging. Once we arrived we asked some more questions of the folks who found the coon babies. How long have they been there? They noticed them a couple of hours ago. Have they seen them before? Never. Have they seen the mom raccoon around at all? Nope! As much as we hate to "kidnap" babies, this particular situation sounded like, for whatever reason, the two 10" babies may have indeed been orphaned. The location wasn't close to the highway so it was unlikely the mom had not returned because she'd been hit by a car, but it was possible someone in the neighborhood 100' to the east may have trapped and relocated the mom considering her to be a "nuisance".
We took the babies and called Nancy. Nancy agreed to meet with us to receive the babies, but suggested that we toss a little towel in with them for an hour or so before driving to Big Pine Key. She said this way we could set out a Hav-a-Hart trap, with the towel as bait, where the babies were found and hopefully their scent would encourage her to go in the trap. The momma be identifiable by her engorged nipples. If we did catch her Nancy would reunite mom and babies and, since the babies were indeed old to follow mom to some degree, release them in a safer location.
Obviously this post will have to wait to be continued...
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