I Found a Chip(munk) on my Living Room Floor

I was going to try and write a beauty and cosmetics or food article for this week’s post since it’s been a while, but something happened this weekend that I couldn’t not write about, and since the purpose of this blog is sharing my personal journey towards sustainability, I figured I’d roll with it.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, we built a catio for our four cats to be able to enjoy the outdoors safely and prevent them from harming wildlife. That said, on the rare occasion, an unfortunate northern short-tailed shrew or black capped chickadee makes its way into the catio (which I’ve learned recently is also called a cattery). On Saturday morning, the cats were chasing something in the basement that had made its way under the washing machine, I thought it was a bird or mouse from the sounds of it. I tried to find the poor critter but given its location I couldn’t get to it. When the cats have caught something in the basement previously its always been a quick ordeal. When I went downstairs that night to feed them before bed, they were still acting strange like they were searching for something, though less frantically than before. I looked around but didn’t see an animal so I went off to bed.

When I woke up Sunday morning and walked downstairs to make my coffee, I had the unpleasant surprise of a chipmunk curled up on my living room floor. Presuming it to be dead, I grabbed the dust pan to bring it outside and chuck (for lack of a more respectful term) it into the woods so that something could eat it and his death wouldn’t be for nothing. (While I don’t know the actual sex of the chipmunk, I’ve taken to calling it a him). A few seconds after scooping him up he started to twitch, I thought they were just spasms as is typical with near dead animals. My husband was going to do the honorable thing of putting him out of his misery before we placed him in the woods. However, he started trying to jump away, while not with vigor and still near death, the movements were not just spasms. After inspection of his injuries, primarily puncture wounds and extreme exhaustion, we placed him in a ventilated box and called a local wildlife rehabber. She called back about two hours later and told us she would take him in.

Sunday night the rehabber posted on facebook with an update saying that the chipmunk had come in with severe shock after his day long battle with my cats. She was giving him antibiotics and pain meds for his injuries and placed him under an incubator to bring up his body temperature. I made sure to donate as rehabbers only run off grant money and donations. I felt so bad about what that poor chippy went through in our home, despite the fact that we have taken measures to reduce the impact our cats have on wildlife. That said, we gave him the best chance of life by putting him in an insulated, ventilated box and immediately contacting our local wildlife rehabber. We did NOT attempt to give him any food or water as we are not qualified to do so and that could actually make things worse depending on the injury. If I hear of any more updates on our chippy, I will let you all know!

What are the take aways:

• Catios are a great way to reduce cats’ impacts on wildlife. That said, there will likely be one or two small animals that make their way inside.
• If you find an injured animal in your home or yard, if possible, place the animal in a ventilated, insulated box and contact a local LICENSED wildlife rehabber. Typically licensed rehabbers can be found on state Fish and Game websites.
• Wildlife rehabbers do not receive funding and therefore operate solely on grants and donations. Not only do they rehabilitate injured and/or orphaned wildlife, rehabbers typically do some form of education and outreach at schools, stores, or town centers. If you can donate to your local rehabber, both they and the animals would surely appreciate it!