Groundhog Day


The groundhog was splayed out in the middle of Friendly Avenue on Saturday evening. I thought it was dead. Then it blinked. So the only thing to do was try to rescue it.
I got out of the car and was standing next to it trying to figure out how I could get it into a box when it came out of its stupor and ran onto the sidewalk, settling in with its back against the Arts Center building. I looked at the groundhog, then at the scores of people across the street in Center City Park. The groundhog made a chattering sound, its teeth clicking together. I decided it wasn’t a good idea to leave a frightened, possibly injured animal on a busy sidewalk in downtown Greensboro on a Saturday night.
The decision to move an animal should never be made lightly. I decided a two-month-old groundhog didn’t have much chance of survival where it was. Center City seems an inhospitable place for an animal that eats vegetables and burrows underground.
One of the things I like most about wildlife rehab is the way strangers will come together to save an animal. This was no exception.
While Dave drove home to get my rescue gear, a Greensboro police officer stood by to help direct pedestrians around the frightened animal. Once I got my gear, a passer-by with greater agility than I possess, took the net and scooped up the groundhog while another man helped me secure the carrier.
A vet at an emergency clinic examined it and found no broken bones or lacerations. But it wasn’t fit to be released this morning: It appeared groggy and hadn’t eaten. I took it to a rehabber in Winston-Salem who has a larger cage where she can observe it for a few days to make sure it’s ready to return to the wild.
… The rehabber in Winston just sent an e-mail tonight: The groundhog is alert and eating. He’ll be released in a few days.

The bell tolls

My neighbor has declared war on wildlife.
Oh, she doesn’t see it that way. But she leaves her cats outside. They’re voracious hunters, going after bunnies, chipmunks and birds.
Sometimes she brings me the wounded, broken bodies and asks me to find help for them. In most cases, it’s already too late. Cats carry a deadly bacteria in their mouths called pasterella multocida. Their sharp teeth can produce puncture wounds when they bite. The wounds quickly seal but the damage is already done because the bacteria is locked inside.
Cats are one of the biggest threats to a dwindling songbird population. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service estimates cats allowed to roam outdoors kill hundreds of millions of birds every year.
I love cats. I have six of them, all indoors, all seemingly content.
Last year, my neighbor attached bells to her cats’ collars. That didn’t work. Cats can stalk so stealthily the bells never make a sound. This year, she’s trying a cat bib, advertised as preventing cats from killing birds.
The one sure way to stop them from killing is to keep them inside. But she’s not willing to do that. So the death toll will continue to rise.