5 tips for keeping wildlife away

Today we talk about wildlife close encounters and rescues. But better than knowing who to call when you find injured wildlife, is to keep the wildlife away in the first case.

Here are some tips on how to do it from Minnesota Wildlife Rehabilitation and Release (interpreted by me):

1) Keep garage doors closed! It'll not just keep out momentary trespassers, it'll keep animals from shacking up and procreating next to your Subaru.

2) Cover your window wells. As someone who once used a shovel to scoop up a screeching rodent of some sort from my parents' Arden Hills home, I can attest to the wisdom of this one.

3) Cover fireplace chimneys. Do this and you won't have to spend days coaxing squirrels from your basement (and then cleaning up their droppings.)

4) Keep pet food in your house or locked in a metal container; the wild animals won't know that it isn't meant for them. A chipmunk took a year off my life in the mid-eighties when it leapt out of a bag of rabbit food and into my face.

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(So innocent! Photo from CC/Chipmunk by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Northeast Region)

5) Before mowing, check for baby rabbit nests and fledgling birds on the ground. Happily, I have never mowed over innocents bunnies.

Ever had a close encounter with wildlife or rescued an injured animal?

--Stephanie Curtis, social media host

And here is my favorite injured animal scene from a movie:

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