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For owls that are superb.
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US Wild Animal Rescue Database: Animal Help Now
International Wildlife Rescues: RescueShelter.com
Australia Rescue Help: WIRES
Germany-Austria-Switzerland-Italy Wild Bird Rescue: wildvogelhilfe.org
If you find an injured owl:
Note your exact location so the owl can be released back where it came from. Contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitation specialist to get correct advice and immediate assistance.
Minimize stress for the owl. If you can catch it, toss a towel or sweater over it and get it in a cardboard box or pet carrier. It should have room to be comfortable but not so much it can panic and injure itself. If you can’t catch it, keep people and animals away until help can come.
Do not give food or water! If you feed them the wrong thing or give them water improperly, you can accidentally kill them. It can also cause problems if they require anesthesia once help arrives, complicating procedures and costing valuable time.
If it is a baby owl, and it looks safe and uninjured, leave it be. Time on the ground is part of their growing up. They can fly to some extent and climb trees. If animals or people are nearby, put it up on a branch so it’s safe. If it’s injured, follow the above advice.
For more detailed help, see the OwlPages Rescue page.
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Yeah, it's frankly a little unfortunate that their expressions of stress and discomfort can so easily be mistaken for bliss or playfulness... Still, I guess it's OK to enjoy the cuteness, this time!!
You reminded me of something I wanted to look up.
Last week we got some baby bunnies that were attacked by a dog and I was trying to comfort one and the bunny lady said how I was doing it is how a predator would touch it before eating it. 😧
We see a lot of ourselves in our animal friends, but their lives are almost nothing like ours, and we can't treat them like we'd treat fellow humans. Especially when we start to go to non-mammalian species, most of us just don't have an understanding of their biology and psychology.
It makes great learning opportunities, but that just reinforces how little most of us know about the wild, too.
For the bunny info:
Writeup on how people often handle wild bunnies in ways that can hurt them.
Rabbit touch/no touch chart
Rabbits do some head affection stuff, but they do have some blindspots, so watch going in too quickly or taking them by surprise from popping out of a place they can't see. Most other spots are only grabbed by predators, and the butt is grabbed by both predators and other rabbits scolding them, so wild rabbit buns don't seem to be a good touch under near any circumstance.
I thought I was rubbing its forehead when I got it pointed out to me, but perhaps not or I was in one of the blindspots for a really little bunny. I forget if they even had their eyes open.
I was more angrily scolded by someone at I believe the Shaver's Creek rescue that has the new Hawk Owlet I posted about the other week. There was a funky looking turtle who I thought was playing with me through the tank, but it turns out it was actually very mad at me, and I was just further provoking it. Oops! Even though he started it, I guess it's on me to be the adult in the room. So it's easy to misread animal body language we aren't familiar with.