Salvatore Wildlife Rescue

09/06/2026

If you tried to reach me today after 4pm I sincerely apologize as I was at a friend's wedding dress fitting and unexpectedly had no service whatsoever!

If I had guessed that that would be the case I'd have turned on an autoresponder so that no one was left hanging, but was taken by surprise.

If you haven't gotten a response from me yet, any remaining messages will be returned in the morning so keep an eye out.

Apologies again and thanks for your understanding!

09/05/2026

Our bag of bones is doing well so far!

His dehydration was corrected and his slow and careful reintroduction to calories was started via small volumes of an emergency semi-elemental diet given every 4hrs (yes, including through the night 😴). Right now he's up and bright, but he oscillates between this and a restorative sleep so deep that he doesn't even twitch if I open the incubator. In really promising news he has started to defecate, meaning his GI system is slowly but surely turning back on, as it were.

He's not head pressing or head holding quite as much as he was on admit and is even grooming now! We can visualize some disturbances in his fur in the sort of manner which can indicate wounds (which are not present) or scars. These spots are localized to his left hind leg and right inguinal area so, if they are scars, would point to him having survived a pretty brutal injury which would have greatly impacted his mobility and could explain the degree of emaciation we are seeing. He's too delicate and underweight to risk assessing that further, but if and when he can tolerate it we'll moisten the fur to move it aside for a much closer look.

09/04/2026

It has been a very unwell chipmunk sort of week here at SWR and our incubators have been getting quite the workout!

This little guy came in this morning and is now resting in one of them while his meds and fluids start to take effect. He was found wandering slowly and showing signs of pain in the street last night- he has no overt physical injuries, but is emaciated and the types of pain signs he was showing imply that his head is what is bothering him.

Getting his pain under control and getting him rehydrated with balanced electrolytes are the first objectives, with food fairly low on the to do list as improper introduction could cause refeeding syndrome and interfere with those goals.

Fingers crossed for this little fella!

09/04/2026

It's soft release day (night) for the- count em!- SIX outdoor flyers: all five spring babies plus our wintertime head trauma lass whose myriad issues finally corrected. It took five full months of care for her, but her mobility normalized and her eyes are good!

They'll have access to the cage and support feeding for as long as they deem it necessary while they get settled out and about. It took a full month for the spring release group of flying squirrels to stop using it... wonder how long these kiddos will take! 🤔

📷: dark nighttime photo of a flying squirrel peeking back inside the cage via a release door

09/01/2026

Just got in this miserable little girl from Fitchburg, another much too young to be out of the burrow chipmunk. Like last week's baby she has arrived sneezing with audible lung sounds and has been started on a pneumonia regimen. Last week's kiddo sadly did not make it despite treatment, but hopefully we have intervened early enough for this sweet one. 🤞🤞

With an eye on some of our neighbor rehabs it feels like there has been an unusual amount of baby chipmunk cases in the region recently. I wonder if burrows have been getting damaged or flooded with the repeat storm cycles we've been having? Something else? Could of course be that there is a perfectly average amount of chippies, but that I just happen to be personally witnessing more of them so it only seems elevated, rather than actually being so. It just feels a bit atypical for what I have personally observed at this time of year since getting licensed, though- a little strange and very interesting in any case!

Keep this sweet one in your thoughts!

08/31/2026

The rehab line has been stampeding along pretty nonstop today with quite a lot of sad cases, but this little one and its sibling came in to counter that a bit.

One of them was caught by (and carefully extracted from) the finder's dog so they started to search for a nest. When it was located it appeared to have been damaged by a lawn mower, an incident which not all the babies survived. Thankfully they did find and scoop up a second one who was hiding, though (off photo snuggled under the blanket)!

Neither of these two babies has a single visible injury and at this time both are ambulating normally. They settled into the bunny group without a backward glance, but we'll keep an extra close eye on them in case adrenaline is masking anything subtle.

Welcome to SWR, little ones!

08/30/2026

Update: I'm sorry to report that she succumbed to her injuries a few hours after admit 😔

Received this sweet Northern Short-tailed Shrew this evening, who had an unfortunate run-in with a lawn mower. It feels odd to say that she's lucky given that she is injured, but she survived the encounter which is very much not a given so that feels pretty lucky!

She has evidence of head trauma (bloody nose, circling) and a couple of small wounds on her back end and is currently dreaming sweet medicated dreams to keep her comfortable.

Head injuries are never certain, but we'll do everything in our power to try to get her through this. 🤞

08/29/2026

This side eye brought to you by one of five admits from today, who is deeply unimpressed with all the things. Just all of them, thankyouverymuch.

08/28/2026

This is a good reminder!

I found a deceased milksnake in the road yesterday while on a walk (my first time seeing a milk out and about 💔). I moved it off the roadway so scavengers wouldn't get hit as well, but remembering to be mindful is always a good thing!

We just had a harsh reminder that it is getting to be the season where snakes like to bask on the nice warm pavement.

Kind folks rushed a mature male Eastern Fox Snake over to us who was hurt on the road, but sadly the snake passed before arriving at our place.

Please be cognizant of basking snakes on pavement while driving time of year.

Of course road safety is paramount. Do not risk your life or the life of others by pulling over in an unsafe manner.

Find an injured snake? Please don’t hesitate and call us using our new phone number:
(519) 304-5195

08/28/2026

Our rehab text line is acting up today and is only sometimes notifying us of messages! Working on figuring it out, but there may be an above average delay in getting a response in the short term if this keeps up. We ARE still open, just having some technical difficulties.

Thanks for understanding!

12pm update: after trying all the settings, as best we can tell at the moment we have at least temporarily fixed the issue by deleting and uninstalling the app (the line is hosted through Google Voice) then reinstalling it. Fingers crossed it holds and that it corrects the autoresponder which it had stopped playing well with in the last week!