How to Help (and Find Help!)

Discovering a wild animal in distress can feel overwhelming. Rescues are incredibly busy and can't always pick up the phone immediately or take every animal about which they are contacted. Our site is designed to help. Below you will find a step by step guide to what to do and links to sources of further help if needed.

Step 1: Assess if Help is Needed

It’s essential that a wild animal in need of assistance is helped but it’s also very important that wild animals are not plucked from the wild unnecessarily. Finding the right balance can sometimes be difficult and that’s where we hope to help.

As a general rule…

Always seek help from a rescue if an animal has

  • a visible wound or growth
  • has fly eggs or live maggots on them
  • been or is caught in netting, a trap or snare, or tangled in fishing line/string etc (see this article for more information)
  • been covered with oil or similar substance (more information here)
  • been in the mouth of a cat or dog (more advice here)
  • been hit by a car (more advice here)

Rescue help is probably not needed for

  • a healthy looking fledgling (fully feathered) bird on the ground (more information here)
  • adult waterfowl with airplane/angel wing (see this article for more information)
  • uninjured baby deer or hares (leverets) without their mother (it’s normal for them to be left alone)
  • a nest of fox cubs, baby hedgehogs, pigeons, or rodents without their mother (Mum won’t spend all her time with the babies)

We have an extensive library of articles on our website which aim to cover the common reasons why a member of the public might think an animal needs help. You can browse them all at helpwildlife.co.uk/advice.

If you have assessed that the animal needs help, getting them contained is a really important step. All the while they are ‘loose’, there is a high risk of them being attacked by a predator or wandering off and missing out on help. They’re also being exposed to the weather and getting wet or too hot or cold can make the difference between life and death for a sick animal.

That said, exceptions apply. Please do not attempt to contain:-

  • Adult Deer, Badgers, Foxes, Otters, Swans, Geese, large Birds of Prey, or Herons.
  • Animals which are trapped in fencing or netting. 
  • Any animal in a situation which would put you in danger (e.g. in the middle of a busy road)

In the situations above, please proceed directly to Step 4 – contacting a rescue.

Although the risk of catching anything from a wild animal is extremely small, whenever you handle a wild animal it’s sensible to take hygiene precautions. You may wish to pick them up with gloves or a towel to avoid touching them directly. After handling, always wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water and/or use an anti-bacterial hand gel.

Before you capture any animal, have something ready to contain it in. In most cases, a large cardboard box lined with a towel is ideal. For larger or very lively animals a carry box designed for cats might be better. If using a cardboard box make sure the lid is secured to prevent escape and that there are sufficient air holes.

If you don’t have a box or carrier, you can be creative. For a baby, small, or immobile animal, you can also use a bucket or laundry basket covered with a towel. Or ask a neighbour or local shop to lend you a box.

Likewise, if you’re uncomfortable handling the animal or you need an extra pair of hands, please seek help from neighbours or local friends and family. Rescues are always under a great deal of pressure and they’re unlikely to be able to spare a volunteer to pick up an animal which doesn’t need any specialist handling.

If the bird is mobile or can still fly you can try to tempt it into a shed, garage or other roofed area to make capture easier. A trail of food may work for confident species such as pigeons. You can also try setting a makeshift ‘trap’ to catch it with as described below. Once caught, follow the section on non-flighted birds below for tips on how to handle the bird.

An adult bird which cannot fly is likely to still try to run away from you. Try to ‘herd’ them into a corner or against a wall to reduce the directions in which they can run. Then you and a helper can approach from different sides. Holding a large towel each also helps you to block off as much of their escape route as possible. If they’re near a road or other hazard, put yourself between them and the hazard so they don’t run towards it to escape you. Similarly, if you’re trying to catch waterfowl, put yourself between them and the water so they can’t escape on to it.

If you want to avoid touching the bird, you can try placing a cat carrier or cardboard box on its side up against a fence or other barrier and gently herding the bird into it.

Most small birds can be handled without risk of injury to the handler but many people who contact us are scared to handle a bird for fear of hurting them. It’s helpful for both handler and bird to place a towel over the bird in order to contain the wings, reduce the friction between hands and feathers, keep the bird calm, and put a barrier between your hands and their beak and feet. Hold the wings against the bird’s body and try to avoid the bird flapping as this will stress it and can cause feather loss.

Always get the bird into a box as quickly as possible and keep the beak away from your face. Avoid contact with the feet of birds of prey too as they have very sharp talons.

If you need to rescue a baby and there are protective parents around, an umbrella is a great way to keep a gentle barrier between you and upset parent birds.

Before attempting to capture a bat, please note the following important information

  • It is illegal to handle a bat unless to rescue it from danger or help a sick or injured bat.
  • Although very rare, some bats in the UK have been found to carry a rabies-like virus.
  • It’s dangerous to try and capture a bat in mid flight. You’re unlikely to succeed but if you do you may injure the bat.

In light of the above information, we recommend that you contact a licensed bat carer before touching the bat where possible. We list many in our directory of rescues or you can also contact the Bat Conservation Trust directly.

If the bat is in immediate danger and you need to move it, pick it up using light gloves or a tea towel. In truth they don’t often bite and the smaller species would struggle to break your skin if they did anyway. But this helps to protect you from any rabies risk and is gentler for the bat.

As a hedgehog’s usual defense is to keep still and curl up, they shouldn’t prove too difficult to capture. It is best to pick them up using thick gloves or a towel to protect you from their spines. Make sure the box you put them in is tall and/or has a lid as hedgehogs are surprisingly good climbers.

Don’t be fooled by the small stature of rodents. Even a tiny mouse can give you a surprisingly painful bite and a squirrel can cause significant injury. Whilst the ability of rats and mice to carry and spread disease is grossly exaggerated, it is sensible to avoid being bitten by any wild animal, so handle with care using gloves or a thick towel.

Cover the animal with a towel and try to “shuffle” it gently into a box turned on its side. That way you don’t need to actually pick the animal up. If this isn’t possible or the casualty has injuries which doing this may make worse, use the towel to ensure the animal cannot see your hands before picking it up. ‘Scooping’ with both hands rather than grabbing with one will cause less stress but cup your hands around the animal as you do so they don’t jump forward out of your hands and risk falling and hurting themselves.

Although getting an animal to a wildlife rescue promptly (ideally within a few hours) is essential, what you do or don’t do in the hopefully small amount of time the animal is with you while you seek help, can make a life or death difference to the animal. Here are some important steps to follow:-

  • Once you have the animal contained, it’s important to bring them inside if at all possible. This helps to prevent escape and provides protection. Placing the box inside your bath or shower and closing the bathroom door is ideal as it’s usually warm and quiet and away from pets. If you can’t bring the animal into the house then a shed or garage is the next best thing. 
  • Keep the animal as quiet as possible, avoiding the temptation to check on them, stroke them etc. Try to keep children and pets away and keep the area quiet.
  • Don’t offer anything to eat or drink. This may go against your natural instinct but feeding an animal which is cold, dehydrated, or in shock can actually cause fatal complications. Feeding the wrong thing or in the wrong way can also be deadly. If the animal is in a quiet, dark place, they will usually sleep and not need to eat or drink. We/a wildlife rescue can advise you on any exceptions to this but always check with an expert first. Never attempt to force feed/syringe fluids into a bird’s beak as it is very easy for the liquid to get into their airway, and never give cow’s milk or alcohol to any wildlife.
  • Keep the animal warm and dry (even water birds should not be allowed to bathe when unwell). For a bright, active adult, just being inside in a warm room should suffice. But babies, any animal which has gotten wet, or animals which have experienced a trauma such as being caught by a cat or being hit by a car, are likely to need supplemental heat. Make up a hot water bottle with warm but not hot water, wrap it in a towel, and place it at one end of the box the animal is in. Make sure that the animal can move away from the heat if it needs to and monitor it for signs of overheating (babies may feel hot to touch, adults may pant or spread themselves out flat).

NB: this advice is designed to cover the first couple of hours or overnight. If you are not able to get the animal to a wildlife rescue promptly, please seek further care advice from a rescue, helpline, or from our helpdesk

If you have found a sick or injured wild animal, we strongly recommend seeking help from one of the specialist wildlife rescues in our directory rather than trying to care for it yourself, or calling general/domestic animal-focused organisations such as vets or the RSPCA. We explain why in more detail here.

You can see details of wildlife rescues in your area by putting your location into the search facility of our directory.

If you don’t find any suitable rescues in your initial search, or those you find can’t help, you can move on to searching the second section of our directory which shows you smaller rescues.

You can also check our list of National Organisations to see if there is one representing the species you need help with. In some cases they have a network of carers or a helpline to offer more assistance.

Now, in an ideal world, you’ll telephone a wildlife rescue, get through to them immediately, and drop the animal off within the hour for assessment and care. But wildlife rescues are struggling – there aren’t enough of them, funding is scarce, and it’s usually the same over-worked volunteer answering the phone and trying to take care of all the animals.

Here are our tips for getting the help you need

  • Be mindful of contact routes. Our directory listings will indicate the best way to contact the rescue (e.g. by telephone, SMS or Facebook message) and it’s important to follow this guidance to get the quickest response. If in doubt, default to a telephone call. Never contact a rescue for help by email unless their listing specifically directs you to. Busy rescues may only check emails once a day at most.
  • You may well not get an immediate answer as it’s likely that volunteers could be busy caring for other animals. Leave a message and/or send a follow up text, making sure to include your phone number, location, and details of the animal you need help with. If contacting them electronically, sending a picture will help them to assess and triage the animal. Give the rescue time to contact you back but do contact other rescues in the meantime
  • Be persistent but patient. Call multiple rescues (not just the closest) and leave messages/send texts. Move on to rescues in other sections of our directory or rescues that are further away if you need to. Rescues often get full and a rescue operating at capacity is unlikely to have the time to return messages about animals they do not have space for.
  • Keep a note of who you’ve called and what the outcome was. It’s so easy to lose track so making a note will help you keep things straight and know who to keep trying and who has said they’re full. If you raise a request with our helpdesk this will also help our volunteers know where to direct you to next.

It isn’t always easy to find a rescue placement and we know that can get stressful. But please remember:-

Most rescuers are volunteers who dedicate their lives to animals alongside jobs and families. Please be understanding if they can’t help on this occasion.

Wildlife rescues rely entirely on donations from the public. Please give whatever you can spare to help cover the costs of your animal’s care and treatment.

If you’ve had no luck finding help, you can contact one of the helplines we list, or get in touch with our email helpdesk. Our volunteers will provide assistance, including checking our reserves list for any micro rescues, independent rehabbers or wildlife-friendly vets in your area.

If you have a small casualty that you have contained in a box or pet carrier, they can be transported to rescue in that. Ensure there is a towel in the box with them so they have something to grip, and, if you haven’t already done so, remove any food or water so this doesn’t spill on the journey.

If you have access to a car then the box can then be placed on the seat and secured with the seat belt to prevent the box from moving too much and causing the animal distress. Try to keep the car quiet by keeping conversation to a minimum and the stereo off – remember that to the casualty, human voices are a source of fear.

But I don’t drive?!

Your first instinct may be to expect the rescue to pick the animal up from you. TV might have given the impression that animal rescues have a fleet of shiny white vans and uniformed employees on hand to pick animals up, but the reality for most wildlife rescues is that they rely on unpaid volunteers who are fully occupied cleaning, feeding and medicating their many patients. If they were to leave the rescue to collect casualties, the welfare of the animals in their care would be compromised.

If you find a casualty and can’t drive it to the rescue yourself, please try your very best to get it there using one of the solutions below:-

  • Take public transport. The casualty won’t find this any more or less stressful than travelling in a car. Just cover their box/carrier with a towel so they can’t see out.
  • Ask a friend, family member, or neighbour to drive you or take the animal to rescue on your behalf.
  • Contact a local pet ambulance service. Many such businesses do rescue work on the side and may be happy to deliver the wildlife casualty for free or at a reduced rate. You can find them by googling ‘animal ambulance’ and your area.
  • Post in a local social media group to ask for help. This is very often successful as most groups will contain an animal lover happy to help. Your chances of finding someone are even better if you post in a local vegetarian/vegan group or one dedicated to animals. Just put your town into the site’s search facility and you should see various options come up.
  • Call an Uber. Many Uber drivers are happy to deliver contained casualties to rescues themselves so you wouldn’t need to travel with the animal. In cases of genuine hardship, where you have exhausted all other options, we may be able to help you with the costs of this. There’s full guidance on how to do this at helpwildlife.co.uk/advice/uber/

The information in the steps above should be sufficient in the vast majority of cases. Taking the time to read through and follow it takes pressure off already over-worked volunteers.

But if, after reading and following the advice above, you are experiencing any difficulties with any of the steps, please get in touch with either one of the helplines we list, or our email helpdesk.

International Help

If you are outside of the UK, the following sites may be helpful in finding a rescue in other countries

Irish Wildlife Matters
National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association (USA)
Animal Help Now (USA)
The International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council