This dear little girl Grey Squirrel didn't stand a chance. Though she appeared to have some sensitivity in her hind limbs, she just dragged them around and was very thin. An X-ray (see below) revealed that she had been shot (the pellet is the white spot next to her spinal cord). The bullet had severed part of her spinal cord and probably lodged in a kidney, as she had some blood in her urine. On careful examination we found a semi-healed bullet hole (see picture to right). She had probably been shot a week or so before and had been dragging herself around like this, in pain, for a week or so. We humanely euthanized her.

How could someone do this to a little innocent animal?

I feel like it's been a really tough week or so. So many people have been so supportive of my work at WTS, and it really keeps me going because sometimes I just feel emotionally spent. And it can be lonely work too; no matter how wonderful all the animals are, and how much I'm sometimes ashamed to admit it (because I feel like I should be stronger), emotional support from the human species has become more important to me than ever before, and I miss my friends who mostly live out-of-town. I think that I never really realised that until opening WTS. Some days are hard physically: building cages and enclosures and carrying around animals and food on little sleep. Other days are tough emotionally: animals dying in your hands after suffering pains we will hopefully never experience. Many of these animals leave mates and young behind, and that just adds to the sadness.

Meet José, an Eastern Grey Squirrel. I've mentioned him before. He was hit by a car back in November and was in very bad shape with a badly broken nose. Amazingly he survived but couldn't see. His eyes were fine, but the part of his brain in charge of vision had been injured. It can happen that once the swelling of the brain subsides the brain will function properly again. However, after 2 months José is still "brain-blind" and there is little hope that he will regain his vision.

Can you find him in this picture? He loves sleeping in a shoebox with blankets outside my bedroom all day (construction of the animal room is still going on, so my whole house has transformed a bit into the animal house!). I have just filled out an application to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to officially adopt him. He is very sweet but cannot be released into the wild. It is my hope that he can be a foster dad to the all the baby squirrels that come to WTS, especially when I get "singletons," lile Lil'Mo, who need to learn squirrelness!

And look who has come back to WTS this winter: the WTS female Yellow Bellied Sapsucker! Sapsuckers are a kind of woodpecker and are not supposed to be here in the winter, but this is her second winter here. Last spring a male joined her, but all winter long she was here all by herself. She loves the suet feeder and will park there for ages.

And there seems like a lot more to report about what has been going on at WTS, but its been super busy with the construction, which is slowly finishing up: exciting! I am so happy that I will now have a real animal treatment area that is clean and doesn't leak (!) (see below picture) for all the wild things (about 100 so far) that come through these doors. And it should be up and running for the spring baby season. I've spend my whole nest egg on this construction, and that kind of a leap-of-faith is a bit scary (don't forget all of WTS work is out-of-pocket, helped a long with some generous donations) but it is definitely something I believe in!

I was just looking on The Squirrel Board (http://thesquirrelboard.com/forums/index.php) to see if I can find a place for my blind squirrel if he does not recover his sight (though he is doing pretty well and making progress), and I found that some of the rehabilitators from the wildlife conference back in October posted a picture of the tiny little girl runt squirrel and the picture won first place in a photo contest! She is SO cute and is still smaller than her brothers. She is not loving being out in the sold weather, but I let her in for a little while each day to play!

Just when I thought the season was nearing the end and I might be able to catch up on sleep and other parts of my life, the last summer litters of babies started to arrive! Here are the stories on a few of them.

This is Bunchowski. He is an Eastern cottontail, and came to me at only 4 days old. He's about 3 1/2 weeks old now. Anyone who has been following this blog knows how incredibly difficult it is to keep these tiny ones alive, but Bunchowski was a real fighter! However, like my other tiny ones that survived to this age, it appears that he may be a victim of metabolic bone disease; his right arm broke a week ago (you can see it wrapped up in the picture) after jumping a few inches. But he is bright and alert and is almost weaned and LOVES cilantro! He is almost 4oz.

And this little lady is a Southern Flying squirrel. Her name is Lady Sedgwick and she weights 20g, or about 2/3 of an oz. Baby flyers are a funny shape- they are about 1/3 head, 1/2 tail, and have a little body in between. She was found when a cat walked up to its owner with her tail hanging out of its mouth. She suffered a few injuries, and is now on antibiotics and is doing really well. If you all remember, Amelia, my last little flyer, came to me with suspected neurological problems. And comparing Lady's behavior to Amelia's at the same age (she is about 4-5 weeks old) confirms this: Lady is so much more "with it" at this age, and has even decided to wean herself!

And these two cuties are 4-5 week old Grey squirrels. They are "Soixante neuf" (on the right) and "Soixante dix," or 69 & 70- their patient numbers (but it sounded so much better in French!)- and were both found wandering on their own flea ridden and thin. 69 is a little girl. And the day she came in, 70 arrived later that day. They are not related, but the same size and instantly snuggled and adopted each other as siblings! After only 24 hours of warmth, snuggling and TLC, their tails started fluffing up! :)

WTS also welcomed another little Virginia Opossum. She was in a wonderful local bakery/lunch place for a week raiding jelly bellies. And she arrived with green poop to proove it! She had some bad abrasions around her neck, but they look OK. She'll stay for a few weeks to get her nutrition back on track and to grow a bit bigger before release.