Aaron Berscheid is a district wildlife officer for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Aaron covers the ìwildî side of Northeast El Paso County, including Black Forest, Falcon, Peyton and Calhan. He also covers some of Elbert County, north of U.S. Highway 24 and south of State Highway 86, including the towns of Elbert, Kiowa, Ramah, Simla, Matheson and a small portion of the Limon area.
At the end of every article, I ask readers to contact me and ask questions with the possibility that they could be answered in one of my ìWildlife Mattersî articles. Well, I finally got a question emailed to me that I wanted to feature in this month’s column.†ìI have a question!î wrote Leslie Sheley, after my last column. ìI was visiting my in-laws over Memorial Day weekend. We found a baby duck and could not find the mama; we spent hours trying.†ìIn the meantime, I called all the wildlife places I could find in the area and no one was open because it was 5 p.m. Saturday night and no one was going to open until Tuesday. Everything I read said to put the baby in a dark box, don’t feed it, don’t give it anything to drink. But it would never have survived until Tuesday.†ìPlus, the little cutey would cry and cry, which is what I wanted it to do to try to find his mama, and would only stop crying if we picked it up and cuddled. We would put him down and try to hide but it would wander around until it found us. I did get it to drink water and he just hung out with us.†ìFortunately, I found someone on Facebook who raised chickens and ducks. She came and got him and apparently he’s doing great! But, what could I have done if I couldn’t find anyone to help? Thanks!îThanks, Leslie, for your question and your support of ìWildlife Matters.î†The first thing I want to make sure you and everyone else knows is how to contact your local wildlife officer or office. It is always frustrating to not be able to contact the proper people when it comes to anything, really.†For normal business hours (8 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday) you can call the Colorado Parks and Wildlife offices in Colorado Springs at 719-227-5200. That phone number will get you to the southeast region office where many knowledgeable staff members can help with questions like these.†If it is after business hours or over the weekend, you can contact the non-emergent Colorado State Patrol dispatch line at 719-544-2424. Colorado State Patrol will get you in touch with a wildlife officer.†Now, when it comes to dealing with baby animals, itís always tough. The best thing for that baby animal in the long run is to be left where it was found (unless it is in imminent danger, like on a roadway with a lot of traffic or injured).†Anytime we pick up baby wildlife, we run the risk of separating it from its mother and its chance at having a wild life.Baby ducklings, and waterfowl in general, are really prone to what is called ìimprinting.î This means that they will follow either the first thing they see when they hatch, or the first thing that provides them comfort or food.†The advice of putting an abandoned duckling in a box without food is probably the best answer when you have contacted a wildlife officer, and they have determined that it should go to a rehabilitation facility. This way, it does not imprint on humans and has the best chance of being returned to the wild with a good natural fear of humans.With all wild animals, it is CPWís goal to keep them wild. Frankly, that should be everyoneís goal. They are not meant to be kept as pets, and we do not do any favors to them if we take them away from their natural state and food sources. Wildlife have been around for a long time and are excellent at taking care of themselves.†Thanks again, Leslie, for your question. I love talking about wildlife, and I look forward to answering more questions about the wildlife in Colorado.In the coming months, Iíll share more of those stories as I write about wildlife issues in our community: Got a question, problem or column idea, please email me at aaron.berscheid@state.co.us or call me at 719-227-5231.†I might even answer your question in a future installment of ìWildlife Matters.î
