(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Karen Kalunian, and today we're gonna tell you what you should do if you find injured wildlife.

(upbeat music) Today we're here with Pam Hood from Sweet Banks here in Foster, Rhode Island and I wanted Pam to explain a little bit about what to do if you find an injured animal, especially wildlife because I know for folks they might see a squirrel that they think is injured or a bird, even in their own yard or on the highway if something should be hit and people want to help, naturally, but what are the best steps to take?

Because it's really very interesting.

- So the rule of thumb is dark, warm, and quiet.

That's the only thing we want you to do, is safely, especially hit by cars, your safety comes first.

Make sure that you are safe in rescuing this animal.

And especially on highways and roads, moving turtles or hit by car birds, your safety's paramount first.

Contain whatever it is, dark, warm, and quiet and then make contacting your local rehabber the very next step.

We do not want you to give water.

We do not want you to feed it.

Good intentions can have bad outcomes, so all we ask is for finders to dark, warm, and quiet and contact your local wildlife rehabilitator.

Animal Help Now app or website is GPS-driven.

It'll automatically list your closest wildlife rehabber.

- In the area.

- Right, wherever you are.

- And it's so interesting that you say no water, no food, because people are so inclined.

the first thing they think it needs is, "Oh, it might need a drink, or it might need some sort of feed or something."

- So if you found a human baby hit by a car or whatever, your first step wouldn't be to pour water down its throat, and it's the same with wildlife.

Birds have a glottis, which is a hole in their mouth and when people put water down a bird's mouth and baby birds don't drink water, they usually aspirate, the baby birds or the baby squirrels or the baby bunnies.

You know, people go out to PetCo and they buy kitten formula and they wanna raise the bunnies themselves.

I guarantee it, those bunnies will die and the baby birds will die.

There's nothing more frustrating for us, who have trained and studied and learned and know what we're doing, then the general public attempting to rehab on their own, and it usually has disastrous outcomes.

- And what you said during this segment is good intentions can sometimes go very badly.

- And we understand, people are compassionate.

They wanna help, they care.

But if you really care, you will get 'em to us ASAP.

- Thank you, Pam.

- Thank you.

- [Announcer] To watch more videos like this, visit ripbs.org/animaltalk.