Help the Wildlife Department educate people about best practices when finding young wildlife. Please use these graphics provided by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
When is the best time to plug this messaging into your channels?
Spring: This is the most common time for people to find young wildlife including birds, squirrels, rabbits, fawns and bear cubs.
After a storm: This is when people will notice young birds and squirrels on the ground.
Late spring to early summer: Fawns are usually born in May and June.
What should you say?
In addition to the information provided here, please consider using this additional messaging.
The best thing to do if you come across young wildlife is to keep them wild and, in most cases, leave them alone and don’t interfere.
When people interfere with young wildlife, those animals will lose their instinctual fear of people and begin to bond with and depend on people to survive. If returned to nature later, these animals will not be able to feed or be aware of what dangers to avoid. And the young animal could even die from the stress of being handled by people.