Tinybits Wildlife Rescue

05/17/2026

I'm not sure if I am missing messages from anyone. You can also send to my phone (316) 217-1418

05/17/2026

Coyote pups are born between March and May across the eastern US. By now they're emerging from the den for the first time — wobbly, curious, and completely dependent on their parents for food.

The adults are hunting more frequently and covering wider territory because they're feeding a family. That's not aggression. That's provisioning.

Both parents forage. The male hunts and brings food back. As pups start eating solid food, both adults expand their range. They show up in places you haven't seen them before. Rabbits, rodents, insects, fruit — they're shopping, not stalking.

🌿 If you see one watching you or your dog:

- You may be near a den — walk calmly in the other direction
- The stare isn't a threat, it's monitoring because pups are nearby
- By fall, the young disperse and leave the area. The parents stay.

The coyote in the neighborhood isn't moving in. She's been here. She's just feeding a bigger family right now 🐾

05/17/2026

Thank you for doing a great job.
If anyone would like to send a letter to help me get my permit approved so I can take some of these babies this is the address.
To help me get my wildlife permit back. Contact Jake George at
[email protected]
Or call 620-672-0760
Thank you.
Dawn Unruh
TinyBits Rescue
Walton KS

The Hutchinson Zoo’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Program at the Cargill WildCare Center has reached maximum capacity in enclosures and neonatal care space and is temporarily closed to intakes. We will alert the community when patient intake resumes.

The Center usually has the highest number of wildlife admitted in the summer due to the influx of migratory birds and young orphaned animals. Already this spring, facility staff and volunteers have taken in more than 600 patients, which is nearly 60% of last year’s total number of patients. Over 100 of our current patients are baby opossums.

As a state and federally licensed wildlife rehabilitation facility, the hard-working staff and volunteers involved in this program are legally and ethically responsible for maintaining a humane standard of care, and aren't able to do that if intakes continue beyond capacity.

Unfortunately, the limiting resources for the Wildlife Rehabilitation program are facility space and personnel. Once the program can release current patients, intakes will resume. Until then, we recommend finders reach out to the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks Office for a list of licensed rehabbers in the state.

We appreciate your patience during this critical time for these young wildlife patients.

05/17/2026

You were taught that opossums play dead as a clever survival strategy. She's not acting. She has no control over it.

When overwhelmed by fear, her nervous system triggers an involuntary catatonic response. Her body goes limp. Breathing slows to nearly undetectable levels. Eyes glaze. Mouth opens, tongue lolls out. She may release foul-smelling fluid to mimic a decaying co**se. The entire response is involuntary — a physiological shutdown triggered by extreme stress.

She cannot decide when to start it. She cannot decide when to stop it. The state can last minutes to hours. She is conscious but unable to move.

The myth frames her as a clever trickster, when the reality is closer to a panic attack so severe her body locks down. The animal you thought was performing is the animal most paralyzed by fear of any mammal in North America.

She didn't play dead. She was so frightened her body shut itself off. The word "playing" does her no justice at all.

05/14/2026

Rescuing wildlife is not always fun, but it's who I am, so I have scars. Every scar you see on my arms is from a rescued wildlife baby of some kind. Some of the scars represent a life I worked hard to save and some a life I held until they died. This says it perfectly, so I'm sharing it with you.

Shared from another rehabber...

I hear so often “I love baby raccoons, I want one so bad...”How can I rehab wildlife?” Or have one as a pet ?
The reality is I love baby Raccoons too, and I wish everyone had it in them to commit to rehabilitate orphaned, injured and sick wildlife. It’s not about kisses and snuggles when raising these kids...Its messes...24/7 it’s p**p..lots of p**p, they finger paint, p**p in food and water dishes play in it, spill it splash in it ...you get my point right? Its money, no one gets paid to do this and we count on donations 100 percent or it comes out of pocket. It’s about being scratched, your legs arms and heads become trees to them and sometimes it’s 5 or 6 at a time climbing at an unbelievable rate of speed straight to the top ! It’s about bites, every day, all day...getting bitten is just simply something that happens, they bite when they want something, they bite when they play, they bite when they’re happy, scared, hurt, hormonal, angry...they just bite. Bandaids, gauze, vet wrap triple antibiotics, oral antibiotics all become the “norm” and most days I look like a cutter.
The last bite I had came from a tiny one that I’ve had in rehab since just after his little eyes opened, I was his surrogate Mommy, he still thinks I am and I still adore him, he just simply got scared when I was moving him into a new enclosure and his only defense was to bite. We made up, I was never mad because well...he’s a Raccoon! And they bite 😊 So next time you say “Awwww I wanna raise baby raccoons” Think about it long and hard and if your heart still tells you yes, the feel free to contact a wildlife rescue and obtain experience and licensing. 🦝❤️🦝

04/26/2026

The nocturnal animals you fear are actually your garden's greatest allies.
Right now, nursing skunks, raccoons, and opossums are scouring your yard for grubs, rodents, and slugs.
They act as a highly efficient, chemical-free pest control network for the entire neighborhood.
But when we use rodenticides and broadcast poisons, we unknowingly kill the very mothers protecting our spring lawns.
Ditch the poisons, secure your trash, and let the midnight cleanup crew do their job.

04/16/2026

1,400 Trips Destroyed in 30 Seconds.
She made 1,400 exhausting trips to build that nest, and a broom knocked it down in thirty seconds. On a warm April afternoon, a Barn Swallow returns to a bare porch corner, her intricate mud-pellet nursery shattered on the deck below.

We view these porch nests as messy property nuisances, casually destroying them for the sake of a clean deck.

In reality, knocking down an active nest is a federal offense under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Right now in April, native Barn Swallows (Status: Declining) are arriving exhausted from trans-Gulf migrations. They spend ten painstaking days flying from creek to porch, meticulously mixing mud and saliva to build a safe nursery. As voracious aerial insectivores, a single swallow family forms a vital interconnected ecological shield, consuming up to 60 pounds of mosquitoes and agricultural pests every summer. Destroying their nest doesn't just kill five chicks; it permanently fractures your local, natural pest control.

You can solve the mess peacefully and legally. Simply nail a small wooden shelf or tape a piece of cardboard a few inches below the nest to catch the droppings.

She pressed 1,400 pellets of mud with her own beak to build a family. Give her the porch.

04/05/2026

04/01/2026

You've seen it dozens of times this spring. A squirrel on the edge of your street freezes as your car approaches. Then it bolts — not across, not back, but in a wild zigzag directly under your wheels. It looks like panic. It looks like the worst survival instinct in the animal kingdom.

It's actually one of the best. It's just aimed at the wrong predator.

That zigzag pattern has been keeping squirrels alive for over thirty million years. A hawk diving at a squirrel from above locks onto a predicted path — straight line, easy intercept. When the squirrel breaks into sudden direction changes, the hawk can't adjust fast enough mid-dive. The closer the predator gets, the more the squirrel zigzags. Against every airborne and ground predator a squirrel has faced across millennia — hawks, foxes, owls, cats — the erratic sprint works. The pursuer overshoots. The squirrel survives.

Cars broke the system. A squirrel's eyes sit on the sides of its head, giving it nearly 360-degree peripheral vision — excellent for spotting predators from any angle. But that same placement means almost no binocular overlap, which means almost no depth perception. A squirrel can see your car coming. It cannot judge how fast.

So it does what has always worked. It freezes — a calculated pause called motionless vigilance, not indecision. It watches. And then it launches into the evasion pattern that has outrun every threat it has ever known. The zigzag that confuses a diving hawk is exactly what puts it under your tire. Cars have existed for barely a century. Evolution doesn't rewrite thirty million years of wiring that fast.

🐦 What to do when you see one this week:
- If a squirrel freezes in your path, don't swerve — it may zigzag directly into your correction and swerving risks a far more dangerous accident
- Slow down and hold your line — the squirrel's freeze is a risk assessment, and the extra second lets it complete the calculation and clear your path
- Spring is peak exposure — young squirrels born this season are crossing roads for the first time with the evasion instinct fully loaded but zero experience with traffic
- Watch one on your lawn sometime — the freeze-scan-dart sequence is identical whether the trigger is a passing shadow overhead or your footsteps on the sidewalk

That zigzag isn't stupidity. It's a masterpiece of evasion engineering, stranded in a world it wasn't built for 🌿