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Jul 2, 2008:
If you’re an animal and the tax assessor mistakes your barn for a human house, chances are you’re living well.
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Jul 2, 2008:
At Best Friends recently, roles were reversed for a king snake and a certain mouse.
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Jul 2, 2008:
It happens every year. Wild Friends—the wildlife rehabilitation center at Best Friends—receives a passel of desert baby cottontails.
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Jul 2, 2008:
You might be tempted to use the adjective “exotic” to describe a recent arrival at Wild Friends, the wildlife rehabilitation center at Best Friends.
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Apr 26, 2008:
When he sits back on his haunches and stretches out his hind legs, a big puddle of fur spills out in front of him, and you can’t help but think of Jabba the Hutt. To say Twizzlers the squirrel is overweight is putting it mildly. This boy is obese, so obese that when he firs arrived the one-foot climb from the bottom of his new enclosure to the next level up seemd like the ascent of Mt. Everest for him.
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Apr 23, 2008:
The Wild Friends department at Best Friends has a new domestic mink! An energetic, playful girl, Pixie is approximately one year old, and ready for adventure. She has almost finished her quarantine period and she has been spayed, so all she needs now are her rabies and distemper vaccines and she will be free to join our other minks, Snitch and Raissa.
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Apr 21, 2008:
A canyoneering guide found her last summer at the bottom of a slot canyon in southern Utah’s back country.
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Apr 12, 2008:
Spring is here! While many people’s thoughts are turning to warmer weather and vacations, wildlife rehabbers are gearing up for their busiest time of year. But even if you aren’t a wildlife rehabber, there are still plenty of things you can do to help wildlife this year (and help lighten your local rehabber’s load in the process!)
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Mar 4, 2008:
Though northern harriers exist across most of North America, the chance of ever seeing one is rather slim, since these medium-size raptors tend to fly low to the ground, looking and listening for prey. It's a shame they're not more conspicuous, because they’re gorgeous birds, with long, elegant wings and tails and slanted eyes that appear painted.
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Feb 27, 2008:
Unfortunately, it’s a common misconception: Put any pet animall who has wild counterparts in the outdoors and the animal will find a way to fend for himself. After all, that’s what animals are good at. But for one box turtle now under the care of Wild Friends (wildlife rehabilitation at Best Friends), it wasn’t a good idea whatsoever.
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Feb 22, 2008:
When Carmen Smith got the call from a local man threatening to kill a raven unless she came and got the bird, the Best Friends licensed wildlife rehabilitator wasted no time in getting in her car. Physically, there was nothing at all wrong with the raven, but he was proving to be a nuisance to the man’s family. The bird kept stealing shiny objects and getting way too close to his family. The man feared sooner or later someone was going to get hurt.
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Feb 6, 2008:
Last summer, Wild Friends, the wildlife rehabilitation department at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, received a rather precious delivery: a baby bobcat, weighing in at about four pounds.
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Jan 9, 2008:
It was a tough break—lots of tough breaks, in fact, for Jeremy the crow.
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Dec 28, 2007:
For many of us, nothing heralds spring or autumn like the distant, airborne honking of Canada geese.
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Dec 27, 2007:
James tiptoed hesitantly to the edge of the swimming hole. Four months earlier, the pond would have been a warm, balmy splash zone.
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Nov 15, 2007:
"Failure to thrive" is a term wildlife rehabilitators use to describe animals who, for any number of reasons, are simply unable to survive in the wild. If the animal is a predator, he might have been orphaned before learning the skills to hunt. Or the animal may have been the runt of the litter or nest, unable to compete with siblings for food. Sometimes, the animal injures himself or happens to eat something toxic, and never recovers to the extent that he can take care of himself.
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Nov 15, 2007:
Echo's new donated enclosure!
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Nov 13, 2007:
Living out your life on a golf course may seem like paradise to some, but try and find three square meals a day out among the sand traps and manicured greens. Good luck! Frick and Frack, two domestic ducks, showed up one day out of the blue at a golf course in southern Utah. Dropped off, no doubt. Somebody's pets for sure.
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Nov 9, 2007:
A fine place for a hawk to gawk
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Nov 8, 2007:
"Now, now, ladies. There's plenty of me to go around." James the duck thinks quite a lot of himself.
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Sep 10, 2007:
Despite popular belief, nurture and nature are not mutually exclusive concepts, even with animals in the wild.
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Aug 21, 2007:
It goes without saying: The Wild Friends department at Best Friends isn’t short on feathers.
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Aug 20, 2007:
Swept away in a flood, trapped without food or water at the bottom of a canyon, and sprayed by a skunk, a baby bobcat endured a harrowing several days before arriving at Best Friends.
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Jul 4, 2007:
When a bull snake was found a few miles up the road from Best Friends, it appeared he’d had a run-in with somebody with some pretty sharp teeth.
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Jul 3, 2007:
The ancient Egyptians venerated the ibis as a sacred object.
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May 23, 2007:
Staff weren’t optimistic about the red-tailed hawk’s chances of survival. Someone had shot him out of the air about 30 miles west of Best Friends.
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May 23, 2007:
They’re small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and indeed it’s hard to resist scooping one up.
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May 11, 2007:
It’s an all-too-common story: You’re sitting in the comfort of your home, reading the paper or watching television, when you hear a sudden thunk at the window and instantly have that sinking feeling in your stomach. Usually, it’s a story that doesn’t end well, but for the sharp-shinned hawk found on the ground below a window in Kanab, Utah, it ended as well as anyone could have hoped.
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Apr 11, 2007:
Early one morning on their way to work at Best Friends, Fred and Marie Zahne noticed a tiny, feathered creature lying on the side of the highway.
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Feb 23, 2007:
What would it be like to walk in a bar and have your pick of dates ranging in size from a few inches tall to a towering 20 feet or so? Talk about variety! In the wildlife world of birds, that sort of size difference (on a smaller scale) isn’t unheard of. In one week, two opposite ends of the wildlife bird spectrum came to Best Friends wildlife rehab (which is state and federally licensed to care for wildlife).
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Feb 14, 2007:
Love, as they say, makes the world go round. Even for animals. But how to find that one and only? Ah, that’s a different story.
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Jan 30, 2007:
Not many animals can walk away from a shotgun blast. Here’s one who did.
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Jan 22, 2007:
Stop the breakfast shakes! Cancel your gym membership and forget counting calories.
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Jan 19, 2007:
"Let's see. We’ve now got a big view of the sky, higher perches, and drop-in visits from our friends.
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Jan 18, 2007:
When an injured mallard was brought to wildlife rehab at Best Friends (which is state and federally licensed to care for wildlife), he seemed pretty glum.
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Aug 20, 2006:
Picky, picky, picky!
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Aug 18, 2006:
Kestrels: A Love Story
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Jun 15, 2006:
Remember Orion? He was the young golden eagle who collided with a semi truck hard enough to send his leg right through the windshield, where he remained stuck while the truck continued driving down the highway. When he came to Best Friends, we were amazed to discover that he had suffered no fractures. He had however suffered significant injuries to his left leg, shoulder and pelvis, and was unable to bear weight on his left leg.
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Jan 26, 2006:
Wild Friends had the great joy of releasing a rehabilitated golden eagle back into the wild on January 22.
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