[00:00:00] Griff Griffith: The message I received on Facebook last spring, was pretty alarming.

[00:00:04] a woman sent a picture of a fledgling bird, a

[00:00:06] young robin, and said, I found this baby, I already fed it some milk, what should I

[00:00:11] do now? Already fed it some milk? I asked her if she was serious and she said yes, and I didn't want to make her feel bad about

[00:00:20] what she had done . I told her that fledglings were actually like teenager birds and that their parents were out watching them. so even though they left the nest, the parents were still feeding them and knew where they were and that she didn't need to bring

[00:00:31] birds like that inside the house unless she thought

[00:00:34] like a cat or dog was going to get them. Then I told her to

[00:00:37] Wildlife Care Center and let them know that she had fed the bird milk because birds don't drink milk. She messaged me probably 20 minutes later and told me that the bird had passed away.

[00:00:48] Have you ever came across? A helpless looking animal. And suddenly you felt helpless yourself. You didn't know how to help this animal. You didn't even know if it needed help and you had no idea who to call for help. We're going to address those things in this special episode of jumpstart nature, because our mission is to catalyze everyone to make a difference for the environment.

[00:01:07] And we've done that very well with our previous episodes. We've helped you bring in some native plants and to create. Wildlife friendly environments in your spaces, And now we want to make sure that you're ready to deal with any possible injured orphan wildlife you come across. We will have a more traditional Jumpstart Nature episode about this next spring, but we just want to make sure we get the information out there to you now, since you've all been following us and you've been planting your native plants, we want to make sure you're ready.

[00:01:32] So in this episode, we're going to give you some basic information and some resources so you can help yourself when you need to help wildlife. I'm Griff Griffith, and welcome to Jumpstart Nature. 

[00:02:01] Michael Hawk: Hey Griff, it's great to see you. And I'm curious, why did you want to talk about wildlife coexistence and wildlife encounters today?

[00:02:09] Griff Griffith: Well, Michael, I just listened to our podcast again, especially Yard of the Future and, Plant Your Bird Feeder really made me think about how our mission is to catalyze people to make a difference for the environment. And if they listened to our podcast and they planted these native plants, they are going to attract more wildlife.

[00:02:28] And so I think it's time that we talk about, Wildlife coexistence and what to do. If you find like a possible injured or orphaned baby bird, because if you're doing everything that we suggest in our, in our episodes, then you are going to have more wildlife encounters. And this is a good thing, but sometimes you may think the wildlife needs your help and it's best to know what to do before you get in this situation.

[00:02:52] Then when it happens, because folks, it's going to happen. You're eventually going to come across an animal you think is injured. Or orphaned. And if you've got a big heart and you're concerned about the animal, thank you very much. This is a sign that you are a good person. And so we want to help you do the best you can.

[00:03:09] And since it's spring and it's happening right now, I wanted to just jump on and do this quick helpful video until we get something with more experts in the future.

[00:03:19] Michael Hawk: Absolutely. You know, We would love to create a fully produced Jumpstart Nature episode on this topic, but I think timeliness is more important here. And, Hey Griff, I know that you're a superstar in social media, but this isn't a video. 

[00:03:32] Griff Griffith: Oh, okay. Sorry.

[00:03:34] Michael Hawk: It's a perfect topic and the timing couldn't be better. It's springtime. We're going to turn this around real quick and get it out there so that everybody can listen. And yeah, you're right. Every year I hear about people who maybe encounter a box turtle or bunnies or birds or whatever the case might be.

[00:03:50] And It is hard to know what to do. So we're going to run through a few examples, I think today, and resources that exist for people to help and, and not make an accidental mistake. Perhaps the best way to start, you talked about birds. That may be the most common encounter that someone will have.

[00:04:07] What do you do when you see a bird on the ground?

[00:04:10] Griff Griffith: So when it comes to a songbird, which is your most likely to encounter, the first thing to establish is whether or not it actually needs your help. 

[00:04:17] , there's so many good resources that we can talk about. So don't feel like you have to take a bunch of notes right now. But one of the first things you want to do is just, if it's in your yard, just make sure you're safe wherever you're at.

[00:04:27] So like, if it's a little songbird, chances are you're safe. If it's a raptor, there's going to be special, instructions. So if you're not sure what to do, and you're not sure about your safety, please contact your local wildlife care center. And we'll tell you how to do that in this, episode, but if it's a songbird determining whether or not it's a fledgling or a nestling is really important.

[00:04:46] So basically is it a baby bird or is it a teenager bird? So songbirds can fledge, meaning they can leave their nests in two weeks, but they still look like a baby. Their tail feathers aren't as long. They might still have some white feathers on them,

[00:05:01] Michael Hawk: Like scruffy. 

[00:05:02] Griff Griffith: Yeah, they're scruffy, but they can move.

[00:05:04] They can hop. They'll try to get away from you. Maybe if you get them on your hand, they might grab your finger. So that's a fledgling and their parents know where they're at. And so most of the time when you find a baby bird, they are going to be fledglings. And the best thing to do is to leave them all the way alone.

[00:05:20] The only time you wouldn't do that is if like you saw the parents were dead, or if a cat brought you that bird, even if it doesn't have an injury, if the cat brought it to you, you're going to need to call a wildlife care center. But fledglings they don't need your help most of the time.

[00:05:33] Unless they're in danger, they're on the road or, they're right in front of your cat or something, but most of the time you can just leave those birds all the way alone. If it's can't get away from you. If it can't hop, if it doesn't have a lot of feathers or just has downy feathers, then it's a nestling and chances are you are very close to the nest.

[00:05:53] And so if you find the nest, you can pick that baby bird up. And you can stick it back in there. You can stick it back in the nest. If you see it.

[00:06:01] Michael Hawk: Now, I've heard people say before, if you touch a baby bird, that the mother will abandon it, or the parents will abandon it. Is there any truth to that?

[00:06:10] Griff Griffith: No, not with 97 percent of the birds. Maybe I've never heard of a bird rejecting its babies. Most birds don't have a sense of smell and they rely so much on vision and hearing that smells on a big part of a bird's trip, unless you're a Turkey vulture or some of the seabirds. So you can pick up the bird and put it back in its nest and its, parents are going to keep, I mean, you could take that baby bird and rub it in some garlic pizza and It's still, parents are still gonna feed it, so don't worry about that. But you should definitely put the, the baby bird back in the nest. If you can see the nest now, say like the nest blew out and it. It's all over the place in your yard and you have to run around and collect a nest back up and you're not sure how to get it back in the tree.

[00:06:54] You can stick that nest into like a strawberry container, you know, those green mesh containers, or you can stick it in a tub, like a butter dish tub, just make sure you poke holes in it. So the water drains out. And Michael, recently I made a video about what to do. We found a baby bird and I, and I put in some misinformation on accident.

[00:07:12] So 

[00:07:13] Michael Hawk: Let's correct it then. What's the 

[00:07:14] misinformation? 

[00:07:15] Griff Griffith: correct that. So I talked about when you're fixing the bird nest, like, so say like you found the bird nest or if you didn't find the bird nest, I said, just put some cloth or paper towel in there. And, and that is the wrong information. Do not do that because if it rains and that gets wet, that could chill the baby to the point that it dies from hypothermia.

[00:07:36] So, when I said that in my last video, I was thinking about, Having the bird in a nest and feeding it inside the house, but I misspoke. So I just want to correct that, that if you have to make a nest, use long blades of grass but hopefully you can find the nest that the parents made and stick it back in the tub and then put that.

[00:07:56] In the exact same spot that you think the nest came out of. And if you don't know, get it as close as possible. I've taken when I was in agriculture, I've taken nests out of like combines, like harvesters and stuff and taped them to the barn walls and the birds still fed the babies there, but try to get the nest back in the exact same spot if you can.

[00:08:15] Michael Hawk: Yeah, the birds aren't stupid. parents are looking, listening. they know how to find their babies. They're, concerned about their babies, if I can anthropomorphize a little bit. The other thing I want to throw out there real quick, that I sometimes see, as a mistake if you're having to like put a nest back somewhere is do not use synthetic things like dryer lint.

[00:08:36] You know, Do not try to augment that nest with dryer lint. Same reasons. It can soak in water. It can change the whole temperature dynamic. There can be Chemicals, small bits of plastic. So much of the fabric in our clothing these days is actually plastic, like nylon and polyester and things like that.

[00:08:53] So do not do that. You said like blades of grass and, and things like that.

[00:08:57] Griff Griffith: Yeah, that's the recommendations I'm seeing wildlife rehabilitators say is long grass. But definitely if you have any questions, you should go straight to the professionals. And in California, we have California council. for Wildlife Rehabilitators.

[00:09:12] And we're going to get into more resources here in a minute that are really going to help you and save you some trouble. But let me just finish this, putting the bird bird nest back in place. If you do tape it back into place, just make sure the sticky bits aren't some place where the parents are going to get them because it doesn't take very much sticky bits to kill a bird.

[00:09:28] just be careful with that as well.

[00:09:31] Michael Hawk: And you're right. There's some great resources that will all be linked as well. And we'll have a a webpage with the show notes and all of these links. Flowcharts too. I think that some of the flowcharts are really helpful because it's like a bunch of if then questions. Like I encountered a bird.

[00:09:46] And then it will ask you a question, that, what does it look like, or what's the circumstance? And it guides you through this process. And I want to just point out possible, and you aren't sure what to do, you contact the rehabilitator before you intervene in any way, is that accurate?

[00:10:05] Griff Griffith: If you're not sure, yeah, if you, if, Hopefully they're available. Wildlife rehabilitation centers are often ran by volunteers and sometimes there's only one or two there and they're out in the back cleaning cages. And so they might not be able to pick up the phone or they might not have their phone on them cause they're dealing with water or whatever.

[00:10:21] So knowing about some of the online resources might also help. So let's get into that. So Animal Help Now, . Thank goodness for them. Because when I first started working at a wildlife care center, I was 12 years old. So this is in the early, early eighties. And it was amazing how much we didn't know back then.

[00:10:38] We're like, we, so we know so much more now about wildlife rehabilitation, but back then we, it was very hard for the public to find information and it was even hard for the rehabilitators to find information.

[00:10:49] I remember some of the calls we went on were, were ridiculous.

[00:10:52] Like one time we went to this, this woman called it frantically about a duck with a bloody head at the pond. And we went out there and it was Muscovy duck, which actually has like its skin showing its red skin showing. So like there was a lot of, alarmist calls. It took a lot of time and there was tons and tons of baby birds brought in.

[00:11:10] And when I was 12 and I started in the spring, mostly what I did, Was feed baby birds and clean cages. And a lot of those birds were bird napped. And so that's why one of the first things we talked about in this episode was like, how to determine if it needs you to rescue it or not, because most of the time they don't need you to rescue them. But animal help now has, is like a dream come true. You can download the free app to your phone and. When you bring it up, it will say, do you have a wildlife emergency or conflict, or do you want to see the resources? And if you have a wildlife emergency, you can click on that and it will tell you what the nearest wildlife care center is.

[00:11:45] And that's very helpful. 

[00:11:46] And the resources page is remarkable.

[00:11:49] Michael Hawk: Yeah, Griff, I, I've browsed through the website and the app a little bit, and I think it's great to spend a little bit of time looking at the app and the, and, or the website, depending on how you're going to use it in advance. , you might have to click around a little bit and find detailed resources, but both will give the same functionality just in different ways.

[00:12:09] And you can find local rehabilitators. You can also find flow charts. They have links for things like, what do you do if you find a squirrel? What do you do if you find a reptile, a bird, different kinds of birds, raptors, which, as you said before, require different, a different flow chart, basically.

[00:12:24] Excellent, excellent resource.

[00:12:26] Griff Griffith: Yeah, and thank goodness, because if you're my age and you know, you've been in this field for a while, you understand, like, this is a gold mine of information. So thank you very much, Animal Help Now. And there's a lot of other good resources, in the age of internet, you can find a lot of, a lot of stuff.

[00:12:41] Make sure that it's a licensed wildlife rehabilitator that you're getting your information from, because there is a lot of misinformation. Like I said, even I misspoke in a recent video. So you want to double check things and do it right. And, since we're talking about wildlife, helping wildlife on an individual basis, it's really interesting in conservation.

[00:13:01] How there's like. Wildlife biologists who think in populations. So they think in overall populations and stuff. And then a lot of your wildlife rehabilitators are thinking about individual animals. And so it's just interesting thing. Cause when we, when we talk about yard of the future and those kinds of things, we're often mentioning like migratory pit stops or, pollinator pit stops and, things like that, dealing with, with populations and migrations.

[00:13:24] And the wildlife rehab crowd is often people who are concerned about the individual animal and they are Helping individual animals a lot of times out of their own pocket. So wildlife care centers are almost always broke. Okay. And a lot of the food and medicines and bandages are bought with the volunteers own money.

[00:13:49] So if you are concerned about individual animals and you want to make sure the baby birds are getting fed, you want to make sure you have a place to take that, squirrel that was hit by a car. It's very, very important to donate to wildlife care centers and or volunteer. And if you have a special skill, like you're really good at website creation or something like that, you might want to help them because.

[00:14:10] Wildlife care centers aren't funded. I remember the first time when I was 12 years old and we went on a call, I couldn't believe that we didn't have an ambulance. I thought we'd have like a little, wildlife ambulance or something, but there was nothing like that. It was, volunteer's car.

[00:14:22] It was their gas money. It was their everything. So please keep that in mind if you're concerned about individual wildlife and getting them help.

[00:14:31] Michael Hawk: And I guess that's another reinforcement of the idea that this time of year, wildlife care centers are often overrun with, as you said, like birds that have been bird napped essentially. People are trying to do the right thing. Like you feel like you're doing the right thing, but if it's a fledgling, it, it very often doesn't need to be taken to a rehabilitator and that increases the workload.

[00:14:52]

[00:14:52] Griff Griffith: If you see an animal that looks like it needs help, like a baby animal just stop for a minute and tell yourself that you're a good person that you care, like, it's really awesome that you're concerned about this animal and then tell yourself that 95 percent of the time, it does not need your help.

[00:15:08] Maybe even higher. It'd be interesting to see what some of the animal help now, people would say the percentages, but yeah, Most of the time, like the deer that you, the baby fawn you see by, by itself, unless you see the mom dead right next to it or dead on the road right next to it, it probably doesn't need your help.

[00:15:23] There are little signs like droopy ears and things like that. If you're really curious, you can look up, but most of the time wildlife doesn't need your help. And when we intervene a lot of time, that's when it gets, it gets complicated. So there are. Wildlife centers for fawns and stuff. But a lot of times, once you take a fawn away from its mother, that animal's doomed.

[00:15:46] There's not very many places that take deer fawns, especially back East where there's like a deer overpopulation. So once you take that baby, you might be dooming it. And if you raise these wild animals, it can have a terrible effect. One of the best books I ever read about wildlife is called Touching Wings, Touching Wild.

[00:16:06] And it is an excellent story of a wildlife. It's very well written. Even if you're not interested in wildlife rehabilitation, it's still a great read because she's just a great writer, but she did all these things wrong. And she talks about her mistakes. And one of the things that she did wrong was she raised a male fawn.

[00:16:23] And. When it got older, because she had bottle fed it and pet it and like, it saw her and saw, the human mother, when it came time to mate, this buck went into town in Fort Bragg and tried to mate with a teenage girl and she saw that as being attacked and they ended up shooting this deer in front of everybody in downtown Fort Bragg because it was habituated or imprinted on a, on a human.

[00:16:48] And One of my earliest memories in the Wildlife Care Center, in Suison Wildlife Care Center, when we were, just starting and we were in this dilapidated house, there was this mean raccoon named Smiley and it lived in this chain link cage and it would, as soon as it saw me, it would pace back and forth going, like just terrible, vicious sounds.

[00:17:08] Right. And the only way that I could do bring it food and water was to have another volunteer spray it into its little box, its doghouse. So that I could run in and change the food and water and then run back out. This is the eighties. They would never let a kid do that. 2023, 2024. But it was, it was. A hand raised raccoon. Someone's pet raccoon they loved it. They didn't abuse it or anything. It just turned mean. You never know how like pet wildlife is going to turn out. And it's wonderful that people want to raise little baby wildlife. They have a big heart and stuff like that, but it almost never goes well for the animal.

[00:17:46] And so the best thing to do almost every time is to leave the animal alone.

[00:17:52] Michael Hawk: So along those lines and along the theme of mistakes made, I remember when I was a kid, we found a little nest I think it's eastern cottontail rabbits for where I lived. And there were a bunch of little baby bunnies in there and they, they looked so helpless and defenseless. And the, the nest was basically just a little depression in the backyard and they were all huddled together seemingly out in the open.

[00:18:21] And it looked, to me and, and to my parents and, and the neighbors, it looked super scary, like what's going on here. And one of the things that I've learned in recent years is that for a lot of different rabbit species. The mothers will only feed their young at dawn and dusk, and they're not going to be on the on the nest the rest of the day.

[00:18:45] They're relying on, like, a cryptic nest. Even though it looks like it's out in the open they're trying to blend in. And if you encounter, baby bunnies, and they appear to be abandoned. They may not be abandoned. So, there's some things you can do. And again, Animal Help Now has a nice flowchart, but this is another example of understanding a little bit of the behavior of the animal and what the normal, say life cycle during the rearing phase is, can be super helpful.

[00:19:19] Griff Griffith: And another thing, when we talked about birds, like the parents aren't going to smell your scent, when you touch mammals, the parents are going to smell your scent. And A lot of times the fear is not that the parents are going to reject the baby that you touched. It's that the predator is going to smell your smell on that baby.

[00:19:36] And so when you touch the, if you're like, Oh, we're just going to touch these rabbits and give them little kisses and stick them back or whatever. That might be what the coyote needed to find that rabbit. So you, you really want to leave things alone. I've seen with the, with the rabbits in the lawn, I've seen someone Put like a laundry basket over it with a little hole for the mom.

[00:19:55] So there's things you can do if you have cats or dogs and you want to protect them. But make sure that you contact your wildlife care center, your local wildlife care center, if you have more questions about that.

[00:20:07] Keep the dog away. creative ways to protect that rabbit 

[00:20:17] Michael Hawk: nest that I've seen wildlife rehabilitators recommend is like, if you have a tomato cage or some kind of You mentioned the laundry basket.

[00:20:26] It's something where the, the mother can still get back in, but perhaps some threat won't. And one other really interesting thing that I've seen and read about is you talk about leaving them alone and not touching them. I think also not paying too much attention, like not going overboard, because say crows and ravens and corvids, they're super smart birds 

[00:20:51] and they're kind of always watching us.

[00:20:54] There are countless stories of corvids looking at what people are doing to find food, to see what our behaviors are. So something else to be aware of if you happen to hear or see a crow in your backyard or a jay or something like that don't go and stare at those baby bunnies at that moment.

[00:21:14] Griff Griffith: Yeah, exactly. It's funny when we used to do bird surveys, when I used to do bird surveys for the Wildlife Conservation Society, the biologist that I was working for, the main biologist, was convinced that the corvids would figure out our flagging that we put near the nests. And so we had to put the flagging far away from the nest and write instructions about which direction to go to get to the bird nest to, cause we were monitoring them.

[00:21:40] Because they were convinced that the Corvids were going to find these nests.

[00:21:44] Michael Hawk: That's a whole other thing. I, I've been trying to get a Corvid specialist on the podcast because Corvids are so amazing and so smart. And, and yeah, they can figure things out. And actually, I'm sorry, I was going to mention something back on the whole bird thing. I was thinking of an analogy of what, what it's like to be a fledgling.

[00:21:59] So, imagine you're a little bird, you're in a nest somewhere. Maybe, maybe that nest is even on the ground. There are a lot of ground nesting birds out there, but regardless of where your nest is, at some point. You're going to start flapping your wings, exercising those muscles.

[00:22:14] You're going to want to be a bird. You're going to want to figure out how to fly. And it's like a toddler learning to walk or a baby becoming a toddler. those first few times where they, where you're Little baby takes some steps. They're going to fall. They're going to make some mistakes, but that's how they learn.

[00:22:31] And that's exactly what's happening with a nestling as it becomes a fledgling. They're trying to figure out how to fly and they're going to have some missteps and they may end up on the ground. That's part of the process. You, you said, don't put a fledgling back in the nest. You put nestlings back in the nest.

[00:22:45] You try to put a fledgling back and it's going to end up right back on the ground again, 

[00:22:49] because it's going to, it's going to do the 

[00:22:51] Griff Griffith: frustrating. I actually tried that before. It was ridiculous. ridiculous.

[00:22:55] Michael Hawk: Yeah.

[00:22:56] Griff Griffith: I For those of you who are interested, really interested in making the world a better place for wildlife, and you are listening to our podcast. And so you're like, okay, yard of the future.

[00:23:08] I've planted native plants, plant your bird feeder. Okay. I don't have bird feeders out so much anymore. Cause I don't want to commit to washing them as frequently as you guys recommend. So I'm just gonna let my native plants feed them. Another thing you could do is you can download the free Merlin app and sit in your backyard.

[00:23:22] So I just moved from, I've, I've lived. For those of you who know me, I've lived in parks and in very wild places for most of my adult life. And now I live in town and I'm so thrilled that I hear just as many birds here as I do when I lived in the, like even out in the Oak Woodlands. There's so many birds in Eureka, California.

[00:23:45] And. I know which birds have territories in my yard because I sit out with a Merlin app on my phone, the free Merlin app. And I know there's a house finch. I know that sings every night. I know there's a white crowned sparrow that sings every night. I know there's Vaux's swifts that fly over. So I excuse me, violet green swallows that fly over.

[00:24:06] So I, Know which birds are out there. So I could get onto allaboutbirds.org Cornell university's bird site. And I could look up where these birds nests. So I can, I can tell if they nest on the ground or if they nested midway up the tree or high up in the tree. And I could learn about these birds just in case I do have some encounters with them.

[00:24:28] I know what they eat. I know they're feeding their babies insects. If I find their babies on the. ground, I know where to look for a nest. If you do some of these preventative things and going to Animal Help Now's website, you'll be ready because when those of us who have big hearts, when we find wildlife that need our help, a lot of times we get a little anxious and like you get the sense of urgency and you want to be prepared just like you, you are as a parent or anything else.

[00:24:54] You want to be able to like, be ready to react. And so I'd encourage you to find out . What birds live in your area, especially in spring, who's singing. Find out a little bit of something about those birds, assign it to your kids, have your kids have to be the ones that figure all this out and they can report to you and then know where your wildlife care center is and maybe go through, especially you parents, go through with your kids, assign this to them. So when the moment arrives for you to have to do something for wildlife, that you're ready.

[00:25:22] Michael Hawk: Yeah. And that actually reminds me, one of our episodes in season one was about connectivity and the impacts that roads have. And I think a real common encounter that people have during a period of time and, and, spring, depending on where you're at and whenever spring is, is you might see. A turtle in the road, like a box turtle, which can be very small.

[00:25:42] And as big hearted people, you want to help that turtle. So. One of the common mistakes with box turtles is, like maybe, maybe there's not an understanding that it's not a baby turtle, box turtles are pretty small but usually it's crossing a road because it's trying to get to a breeding site, a nesting site something nearby.

[00:26:04] So rather than. Pick up that turtle if it's uninjured, what's recommended is just help it across the road in the direction that it was pointed. So don't, don't set it on the other side of the road. Don't take it to your nearby pond. Just help it cross the road exactly where it's at.

[00:26:24] Griff Griffith: Yep. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. And I feel terrible about all the turtles who I've sabotaged their plans on accident. I often, I would see them like far out in the fields and I would pick them up and take them, like the Pacific pond turtle and I'd take it back and put it in the pond. And sometimes it would pop up and look at me and now I know it was going like, why did you do that?

[00:26:59] I was trying to go lay eggs or I was trying to go hibernate or whatever. So, yes, really good advice there.

[00:27:07] Yeah. A best practice is to make specific note of your location 

[00:27:29] Michael Hawk: have your mobile phone with you, you could do like a GPS pin, drop a pin, so you know exactly where you found it. Because very often, some of these animals need to be returned to the specific place where it was found. And that's true for turtles, especially, but I know it's true for other animals.

[00:27:43] So I would say that's just a best practice. If you pick something up, make sure you know exactly where you picked it up, as close as possible to the specific location.

[00:27:52] Griff Griffith: Yes.

[00:27:54] Well, we're touching on the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what to do when you encounter an animal, when you see an animal on the road in your backyard. I think this is good information though, Griff.

[00:28:03] Michael Hawk: I appreciate you bringing this topic to the forefront because now is the time. We're going to be seeing lots of animal encounters over the next few weeks.

[00:28:13] Griff Griffith: We talked about. Wildlife biologists focusing on populations, but I feel like you made a really good point, Michael, with a lot of our species now saving one individual can make a big difference for the population, especially when it comes to some of our herpetofauna, some of our amphibians and reptiles and stuff.

[00:28:29] So folks these are not wasted efforts. So we really appreciate you wanting to attract more wildlife into your spaces and wanting to help them. And. Again, please check out these resources before you need them, and then talk to people about what you learned because there is a lot of misinformation out there about what to do when you find wildlife.

[00:28:48] So we appreciate you helping us get everybody on the same level so that we can move forward as better stewards and, and keep some of our wildlife here for our great, great, great grandchildren to enjoy.

[00:29:00] Michael Hawk: Yeah. And one more thing we do, we would love to do a more in depth say traditional Jumpstart Nature podcast episode on these sorts of issues for next year. So if you have ideas, or maybe you're an expert, maybe you have a story you'd like to tell, reach out to us.

[00:29:16] You can find us at podcast at jumpstart nature. com and let us know what you're thinking, what you would like to get out there in the public, and perhaps you can be part of our episode next year. All right, Griff, thank you so much for the idea, taking the time today, sharing your tips, and I hope this has been useful.

[00:29:33]

[00:29:34] Michael Hawk: Hey, it's Michael again. If you want to contact us, we have an exciting new feature. There's now a direct link in our show notes that allows you to text us. So give it a try. If you want to tell us about what you think of an episode. An idea that you have maybe a topic you'd like to hear in the future. Maybe even you think you would make for a great guest. Let us know. 

[00:29:54] I'd love to hear from you. And also we do have additional traditional jumpstart nature episodes in the works. And as you might guess, they are a little bit complicated and complex to put together. So there are several half finished episodes where we're waiting for some additional interviews and a few other things to fall into place before we'll release them. So going forward, I don't think we're going to release seasons of episodes. 

[00:30:17] Instead. We're going to try to release episodes on a fairly regular basis when they're ready. And ideally, when it's most pertinent for you, 

[00:30:24] Thank you so much for being a listener. And we hope to hear from you.