Philadelphia Metro Wildlife Center

THE PHILADELPHIA METRO WILDLIFE CENTER IS OPEN! CONTACT US - If you have an animal question, or if you have found a hurt or possibly orphaned animals, please CALL US directly at 267-416-WILD. Please do not email animal questions. DONATE TO SUPPORT OUR WORK at http://phillywildlife.org ... SHARE OUR NEW LOCATION with everyone you know Have a Facebook group for your neighborhood? Share our contact information there whenever wild animal concerns pop-up! Thank you again for your continued support! -The PMWC team

Here's the Canada goose from two weeks ago, stitches out, leg healed, being released back home and flying back to see his friends. There are many sub-species of Branta canadensis so it's important to get them back to their original tribe once they've recovered.

The answer to yesterday's X-ray quiz. Gray phase Eastern screech owl.

This is an animal we are currently treating, can you guess what it is by the X-ray? Answer coming tomorrow. Clue: it's not ET.

This goose was found in the road in the middle of the night with a gash on his leg, unable to walk. A few stitches and bandages later, he's able to stand and walk, prognosis good with a course of antibiotics and a little something to dull the pain.

Dig this, Mrs. Red-Tail here is one of four species of hawk we have now, she was hit by a car two weeks ago and recently got moved from ICU to an outdoor cage, and hopefully will be released soon She's half of a mated pair so her husband will want to know where she's been. Got a lotta 'splainin to do.

This is yet another snake that was tangled in fine mesh, cutting underneath its scales, brought to us by some very brave people once we determined it was not venomous (they emailed us a picture first). Fast action, proper tools, and experienced hands of PMWC staff freed this harmless little buddy, and after we cleaned and dressed his superficial wounds the finders were able to release him back from whence he came on the same day. He'll be hibernating in another month, and he knows exactly where he has to go to get below the frost line for the winter in our area (roughly 40 degrees North latitude).

We are still getting baby mourning doves, or as we call them "modos", which are often the last babies of the summer. Among the reasons we get baby and adult modos being brought here are trees being cut down, being caught by cats, or getting hurt flying into windows. But we always council people to leave fledglings alone if they're not hurt, learning to fly is a natural process.

Update on the screech owl from Aug. 31, stuck in spotted lanternfly paper goo: this little buddy is looking much better now, hoping to be released soon.

This is the hurt Cooper's hawk that was brought to us from Roxborough yesterday, just so that everyone there who was concerned knows that the animal wound up in good hands and is in our care now. It's unable to fly right now, but it's alert and stable now and we will give it full diagnostics and get to the root of the problem.

Here's the last of this summer's orphaned baby raptors being released as strong, confident, self-sufficient juveniles. And we are happy that we've formed a great partnership with Pennypack Ecological Restoration Trust so that we could release this young screech owl and these two kestrels on Pennypack's amazing property - the perfect habitat for these guys. Thanks to Pennypack Ecological Trust and good luck to our young raptors- have a great life of freedom.

Yet another spotted lanternfly paper victim--this time a red-tailed hawk, probably stuck because it was trying to get at another animal that was also already stuck, so the damage is compounded. This bird had the paper on it for a long time and was unable to fly and was slowly starving to death, so our first priority before removing the paper is to stabilize the animal and get its strength back.

Here's the great horned owl from August 24th, which was tangled up in soccer netting, being released back to its home territory.

This screech owl was stuck on lanternfly paper and was in bad shape from all the toxic glue. He is doing better now after being cleaned off, but most are not so lucky. We don't advocate the glue paper due to the massive impact on wildlife. If you want to control the lanternflies better, go for the egg masses instead!

Remember to take soccer nets down when not in use! This unfortunate and disheveled great horned owl, what we call a GHO, got tangled up in a soccer net (this happens a few times a year here). The family who found him called us and we talked them thru how to bring the owl here safely, they were very brave and helpful. I hope they have a great adventure to talk about around the dinner table for years to come. Quick action at our facility with volunteer Karen Melton got the owl freed; the strings were looped tight around his neck and he would have died. He is recovering well now.