Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Employees Work to Save 36 Orphaned Baby Raccoons

While the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center (EAWRC) always experiences a fluctuating number of animals in rehabilitation, the number of baby raccoons entering the center has recently reached at an all time high. Requiring endless staff, formula, incubators, cages and toys to aid in rehabilitation until they can be released, EAWRC and its employees are currently working to save 36 young raccoons.

Neonate (newborn) raccoons are kept in incubators and are moved into small enclosures when their eyes open. After leaving the incubator, they are typically placed in groups of four to five, all within a similar age range. Neonates will stay in the hospital until their toddler stage, to ensure they are developing properly and receive vital nutrients.

Because the center has age differentiation between the groups of raccoons, they are cycled out of cages between the hospital and outside enclosures. While it might sound simple, raising raccoons is not an easy task.

“They require 5% worth of their body weight in formula, every two to three hours,” says EAWRC animal care assistant Rose Lynch. “Supervisors have to take the raccoons home, care for them and give up valuable sleep time when they have to complete 2 a.m. feedings.”

Employees such as Lynch, along with hospital supervisors Jessica Chiarello, Adrienne Gillespie and Grace DeNatale are usually the ones to take on the arduous task.

“We try to be an artificial mom,” Lynch adds. “Try to view them as individuals, and not as a group, learning each one’s quirks, likes, and dislikes.”

EAWRC employees will also scrunch the back of the baby’s neck to imitate a mother’s licking and promote the neonates to feed on the formula.

Eventually, the raccoons will no longer need to be fed throughout the night, and remain at the EAWRC instead of being transported home with a hospital supervisor. The closeness between the raccoons and the employees is vital, as they require love and attention while they are growing and developing. When the raccoons move outside, this behavior will drift away. Signs of touching around and opening their eyes are good indicators that the raccoons are receiving proper nutrients, and, as the raccoons age, they become more afraid of the EAWRC employees — a sign that they are aging normally.

EAWRC also vaccinates all their raccoons to compensate for the lack of immunity developed in the wilderness, creating their own artificial immune system. As the raccoons develop, their rehabilitation timing is considered more holistically. The raccoons will let the EAWRC know in their own way.

“Spikes in eating patterns and escape attempts which occur around two to three months, aligning with when a typical raccoon juvenile would separate from their mom, is how employees decide a raccoon is ready to be released,” Lynch says.

If possible, EAWRC will try and send them back to the mother raccoon if the mom is alive and well. However, since in most cases the mother was shot by exterminators or hit by a car, situations where the raccoons can be reunited are rare. Just last week EAWRC was able to send away two babies with their recently rehabilitated mother; however, the remaining 36 raccoons currently residing in the center are not as fortunate.

While an explanation for the spike in orphaned raccoons cannot be explained, the problem itself can be. Long Island is a high density raccoon area, and the animals haven’t had any natural predators after coyotes and wolves disappeared from the region. Thus, they inhabit areas wherever they see fit. Unfortunately, this tends to be home attics, as during mating season mother raccoons look for safe, protected and dark locations for their nest. Exterminators are often called and the mother is killed, leaving orphaned baby raccoons.

“Please let mom do what she has to do, and dont kill her for it. She doesn’t deserve to die for trying to raise her babies safely,” Lynch pleads. “There are safe, humane ways to remove the raccoons without killing the mother.”

Common misconceptions help reinforce the longstanding assumption that raccoons are dirty pests. Not only do raccoons help stabilize local mice and fish populations, but racoons are the opposite of dirty. Mother raccoons wash their babies all the time, as well as their hands. Gillespie calls them “very curious and intelligent beings,” that will “wash their food and hands before eating their next meal.”

Baby raccoons shouldn’t be piling up the EAWRC doorstep, orphaned and alone. The process of rehabilitating them is difficult, uncertain and requires constant attention. If a raccoon has a nest in your attic, do not call an exterminator; instead, call EAWRC for directions on how to humanely move the family. This effort will help prevent the excessive orphaning of baby raccoons.

EAWRC is located at 228 West Montauk Highway in Hampton Bays. It can be reached at 631-728-4200, and animal emergencies can be reported at 631-728-WILD (9453). The center is open 9 a.m.–5 p.m. seven days weekly. Visit wildliferescuecenter.org for info.