What do you do if you find a baby bird on the ground? I’ve been wondering because my son found one on the ground last year and wanted to pick it up, but I wouldn’t let him because I was taught that if you touched a baby bird, the mother bird would reject it. Is it the same for other baby wild animals?

The official word about what to do when you see a baby bird or other young wildlife that you believe may be abandoned is to keep your distance.

“Just leave it alone and don’t mess with it,” says Blake Sasse, a wildlife biologist with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. But - there’s always a but - if you see a very young bird, such as a featherless nestling, pick itup and put it back in its nest if you can find it. If you don’t see a nest, leave the bird where it is and chances are that the mother bird will take care of it. In either case, don’t worry that touching the baby bird ensures rejection. It doesn’t.

When you see a partially feathered young bird, or fledgling, hopping around on the ground, there’s also usually nothing to worry about, he says. Fledglings, which have short tails and wings, are old enough to be out of the nest but can’t yet fly. Their parents are watching them, so don’t give in to temptation to pick them up and put them in a bush or tree.

Most baby animals - whether it’s a bird, bunny or squirrel - people believe are orphaned really aren’t, Sasse says.

“Your assumption should always be that the animal has not been abandoned. Unless you know for a fact that the parents are dead - hit by a car, eaten by a cat - the animal probably has not been abandoned.”

If you’re worried about a fledgling or nestling, he says, watch it from a distance to see if the mother returns. If she doesn’t and you decide to “rescue” the bird, then you need to contact a wildlife rehabilitator trained in how to raise wild animals so they can later be released into their natural habitat.

A wildlife rehabilitator needs to care for birds and other wild animals, Sasse says, because there’s a big difference between raising a wild animal as a pet and raising one to fend for itself in the wild. Rehabilitators are trained for the latter. You can find a list of wildlife rehabilitators as well as information about becoming a rehabilitator at tinyurl.com/5vv2got.

Wildlife rehabilitators are volunteers experienced in caring for wild animals. They have a veterinarian working with them to provide advice. Anyone who wants a permit from the Game and Fish Commission to care for rescued wildlife must complete a two-year apprenticeship with an approved rehabilitator, plus find a veterinarian who will work with him.

For more information about what to do if you find a baby bird or other wildlife on the ground, check out wildlifehotline.org. There you’ll learn, among other things, that rabbits nest on the ground in shallow depressions lined with fur and grass, so if you find baby bunnies, they’re probably in their nest. Mother rabbits return to the nest only at dawn and dusk.

Do you have a question about

pets? We’ll get you an answer

from an authority. Send your

question to Rhonda Owen,

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette,

P.O. Box 2221, Little Rock, Ark. 72203 or e-mail [email protected]

Family, Pages 34 on 05/01/2013