Helping Wildlife During Wildfire Season

Wildfire season is here, so Redwood News spoke to a California Fish and Wildlife biologist about what North Coast residents should and should not do if they want to help out wildlife this fire season.

“One of the biggest things people want to do is put water out for wildlife– and actually, we highly suggest staying away from that,” says Kiana Hargreaves, Humboldt-Del Norte Unit Biologist, California Fish & Wildlife. “A lot of times when you have a water source where there’s lots of animals moving through, it can be a really detrimental disease kind of situation,” she continues, “so different diseases can get passed to different animals. And if you have a big congregation of wildlife coming together and drinking out of that same water source, those diseases can be spread a lot quicker. So we actually want to remove that.  And definitely do not put out food. The animals know where food is. And right now, their main priority is to get away from the fire. So they aren’t necessarily even looking for food. They’ll find food on their way or when they like hang out for a second and just regroup. So you don’t need to put out water when you don’t need to put out food.  And we also want that wildlife to go back into the forest once the fire’s gone. We want them to move back to their house and to not rely on people for anything, because if they start relying on people, that’s when they start getting into trouble and hanging around more.

I’m all for you looking at wildlife. Take those photos, take the videos. If you feel super concerned about it, absolutely you can call the Fish and Wildlife Department, and I will be the one contacting you about that sighting.  Especially if you see an animal that is injured, so maybe it has burns or different things like that when they run from fires, those are super important for me to know about. That way, if there is something I can do, I can head out and we can interact with that wildlife and kind of see what options we have.”

So, do admire wildlife from afar, do call Fish and Wildlife if you see an injured or burned animal, but do not feed the wildlife and don’t put water out for them.