While it can be tempting to approach wild animals who live near us or who we encounter while out walking in the great outdoors, it is a sad truth that the dangers of handling wild animals are numerous and often very serious in their consequences. There’s nothing wrong with feeding squirrels or marveling at a deer that has walked onto our property, but it’s important to keep in mind that physical interaction with wild animals can often lead to disease, injury, or even death. Here are just a few reasons why handling wild animals should be avoided where possible.
Many Wild Animals Carry Diseases
When handling animals, few people realize how dangerous a simple scratch or bite can be. Even from dogs, scratches or bites can result in serious infections that require hospital stays, and this is true of wild animals also. Even friendly chipmunks may feel threatened when approached, and a bite from a chipmunk can carry bacteria or a virus that is extremely dangerous to human health. Contact with fur, skin, blood, and saliva all carry their own potentials for diseases, and parasites can be transferred from an unsuspecting carrier to your or curious children. Instead of risking a case of rabies, try enjoying the presence of wild animals from a distance.
Risk of Injury
Unlike domesticated animals, wild creatures may go into defensive mode when around humans, even when humans are not demonstrating aggressive behavior. Small and prey animals are especially prone to anxiety with strangers and will lash out, whereas larger and predatory animals can be very territorial or won’t understand how delicate humans are. While many wild animals may seem small and harmless, the truth is that even an animal smaller than a cat can do serious damage when it feels cornered, especially if it instinctively jumps to strike a person’s face or neck as many do. They may seem cute and cuddly when you watch them scamper after food on the ground or tilt their head while looking up at you, but the fact of the matter is that it is safer for you to keep your hands to yourself, and the animals do prefer it that way.
We May Accidentally Injure an Animal
Although they may resemble household pets, undomesticated animals may have behaviors that are strikingly different than the dogs and cats that most of us are used to interacting with. Handling a baby animal may cause its mother to reject the baby, for example, meaning that the animal be abandoned and die. Birds do not have strong senses of smell, but if they see a human lurking about their nest and even handling their babies, they will either attack you or deem the situation too dangerous and abandon the nest. Mammals, on the other hand, identify strongly by smell and will abandon their young if they smell like a predator. We may also inadvertently cause injury to baby animals who are more delicate than they appear, an outcome no animal lover wants. Something as simple as picking them up the wrong way, holding too tightly, or even just stressing them out too much can cause serious damage to their bodies that result in lifelong disability and even eventual death.
Understanding the Difference Between a Pet and a Pest
While feeding wild animals may be an enjoyable activity which the animals enjoy, we may end up creating a pest problem for our home by accident when we’re too generous with food. When animals come to understand that they have a regular food source at a particular home, they may bring other animals to find food and shelter. Unfortunately, animals such as raccoons, opossums, and even rats all-too easily become too familiar with a home and come to rely on homeowners for a food source. This will encourage them to build a nest near or even in your home, and once there, they can do thousands of dollars in damages to electrical wiring and woodwork and require the help of a rodent control service. This can be confusing, especially for children who see friendly little rats in a pet store, but it is important to remember that pet rats and wild rats are bred and raised very differently, resulting in more aggressive instincts in the wild ones, and that wild animals have been exposed to parasites, bacteria, and viruses that can easily be passed on to humans. Rats in pet stores have also not been exposed to many forms of meat and are mostly vegetarian, but wild ones will eat anything they can chew on, including biting people. Mice are less likely to approach a human, but still carry disease and chew through housing material. If you do notice an infestation taking place, act immediately and find a humane pest control service to help you find out why they’re there, how they got in, and make sure that they are removed with no chance of coming back. Most importantly, never try to catch these animals with your bare hands. Professionals have the means to safely and humanely remove these animals and should always be consulted before attempting to remove a wild animal visitor.
Wild animals are often a great part of nature to observe, but they are often a danger to interact too closely with. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying nature at a safe distance, but being aware of the dangers of handling wild animals is often the first step towards a peaceful and happy relationship to the natural world. Take special measures to ensure your children understand the differences between wild animals and the pets they’ve met in clean environments, and encourage them to enjoy these creatures from a safe distance.
