Wild animals rarely abandon their young

Every year, tens of thousands of baby wild animals are rescued that didn’t need to be rescued. In most cases, well-meaning people are trying to help an animal that they believe has been abandoned by its parents. All wild animals have very strong parental instincts and will often risk their own lives in defense of their young. It would be extremely rare for a wild animal to abandon its young. Many wild infants are believed to be orphaned because a parent animal is not seen. Some mammals, such as rabbits and deer keep a distance from their young during the day so as not to draw attention to their location. A commonly believed fallacy is that wild animals will abandon their young if touched by a human. While no wild animal should be handled unless absolutely necessary, enhancing an infant animal will certainly not cause the parents to abandon it.

Parenting Habits - Individual Species
Not sure if the animal is orphaned or just left alone for the afternoon? See reuniting tips under the particular species.

Mammals

You can be certain that you have a legitimate orphan only when you have a dead mother, in the case of mammals. 

Finding a dead adult rabbit or squirrel in the street does not necessarily mean that the nest of young in your back yard are orphans. Steps should be taken to determine if the young are being attended by a parent before any human intervention is instituted. 

Birds

If both parents are dead in the case of most birds, then you can be relatively sure that the babies are orphaned. If a mother bird is killed, in most species, the father bird is capable of caring for the young after hatching. 

Exceptions to this: hummingbirds, pheasants, turkeys, grouse, woodcocks, and most ducks. In these species, only the female cares for the young. 

People often want to "rescue" fledgling birds or infant mammals to protect them from dogs, cats, or kids in the neighborhood. Obviously, bringing all the wildlife indoors for their own protection is not feasible. The solution lies in controlling the domestic animals and children, not the wildlife.

 

One myth about birds is that the mother will not return if you've touched her young.  The truth is, birds can't smell, so if she doesn't return it isn't because she could smell your scent!  Most mother birds will return to their young and continue caring for them as usual, and back with Mom provides the best chance for their survival.

Human Intervention

One of the more prevalent misconceptions is that hand-rearing of wild animals by humans is an acceptable alternative to parent rearing. Human intervention should be the absolute last resort for any wild infant. Callers to wildlife rehabilitation facilities often cannot understand why the rehabilitators are willing to expend so much effort to reunite infant animals with their parents. This is not because they are trying to lessen their animal care workload. While hand-rearing may facilitate the immediate survival of an infant animal, it greatly reduces its potential for long term survival in the wild. This is equivalent to winning the battle and losing the war. 

Unfortunately, hand-reared animals do not have the same survival skills, and perhaps more importantly, may not have the fear instincts of a parent-reared animal.

Imprinting - a loss of fear

No wild animal should ever be hand-reared.  To do so will nearly always result in imprinting or socializing of the animal. Imprinted animals will not fear people and probably not dogs, cats, automobiles, or many other things that can do them harm. An imprinted animal is one that doesn’t recognize what species it is. Imprinting is irreversible. Because the fear of humans has been removed, imprinted animals can also present a risk to human safety.

 

OWC's resident coyote, Hope, was raised by humans.  She came to us already very comfortable around people after being treated like a domestic dog.  While she still maintains many of her coyote instincts, her comfort around people would be dangerous to her in the wild.

Yet another misconception is that if a wild animal is imprinted or socialized, it might make a good pet. While juvenile animals may appear cute and cuddly, when they grow up they will have natural urges that will make them unsuitable as pets. Imprinting can make an animal think that it is human, but does not remove its natural instincts. This is frustrating to the animal. It is inhumane to deprive a wild animal of its natural behavior. It is also illegal to possess any native wild animal without permits from state wildlife agencies, and also from U.S. Fish and Wildlife to posses a native bird. Anyone illegally possessing native wildlife in the U.S. is subject to fines, imprisonment, or both.