When baby animals are spotted on local properties it is best to leave them alone, according to both a local wildlife rehabilitator and Newtown Animal Control Officer Carolee Mason.

Head O’ Meadow Elementary School administrative assistant Toni Baranowski, who lives in Southbury, is also a wildlife rehabilitator. She fields many questions from locals throughout the year, and this time of the year there are some special tips she says are always important for people to know.

This time of the year is “baby season,” Baranowski said in a recent phone call. She has also shared information with The Newtown Bee in the past, and she said the same tips she has shared in the past apply this year, too.

Baranowski said it is against the law, per the Department of Energy and Environment Protection (DEEP), to trap animals during warmer months or baby season. Trapping animals at this time means there is a greater chance of trapping a mother, which would then leave the babies abandoned where the mother left them.

During this time of the year, Baranowski said she listens and she advises. One recent call was about a family of baby foxes found in a barn. Baranowski said she advised that the babies be left where they were found so the mother could come back and move them eventually.

Another person contacted Baranowski about a sick fawn found at a doorstep.

“Absolutely don’t touch it. Stay away,” said Baranowski, adding that the mother had probably just given birth and left it there to return to it later.

She also said people should be careful of information on the internet, where people may offer advice without sources.

Whether people are noticing more things due to being home more this year or not, Baranowski said she is hearing from people about seeing more animals.

This has been a “big year” for chipmunks, she noted.

Mason said there has been an effort to post information on leaving baby animals alone on the Newtown Animal Control Shelter Facebook page. Newtown Animal Control has not had many calls this year, and Mason attributes that to people knowing not to interact with baby animals thanks to the Facebook posts. She has received calls about injured fawns. She also noted fewer animals are being killed on local roads with fewer people driving.

She added that when people chop down trees, nests or babies are sometimes found in the trees; they should put the stump with the animal on it somewhere nearby so the mother can return to it to get her young. People should not pick up found animals to bring them elsewhere, she shared.

Bats and owls are also having babies this time of the year.

“It’s just a matter of these mothers trying to raise these babies,” Mason said.

With people home more this year due to the pandemic, they are spotting babies being left alone during the day when the homeowner would not normally have been home.

“Nothing can be removed. We do not relocate anything,” Mason explained. “We let nature build its course. They are not going to be there forever.”

There are a lot of building projects happening in town, and Mason said that means animals now have nowhere to go. She said she asks people to be compassionate and to give animals the benefit of the doubt at this time.

As Baranowski explained in an interview with The Newtown Bee in 2017, many animals that are thought to be orphans are not orphaned. Animals like deer and rabbits tend to leave their young during the day to look for food. While people may mean well, helping the baby animal or animals requires knowledge and resources to do it correctly.

As previously reported in The Newtown Bee, bunny nests can frequently be situated in yards in the spring, so people should check for nests before mowing yards. For bunny nests, Baranowski said, people can place yarn across the nest in a checkerboard design. If the yarn is disturbed within a day, the mother returned, most likely at night. Bunny nests tend to be placed in shallow depressions in dense grass. If a nest is found, the mother will move the babies to a new location within two to three weeks, according to Baranowski.

She also previously shared that when people find young birds on the ground, they should immediately create a makeshift nest out of a basket or box. Use gloves to place the bird in the fake nest and secure it in the same tree the bird fell from. It can take 24 hours for the mother to return. It is safe for the birds if picked up with bare hands, but birds tend to carry lice. If the bird is not feathered and it is cold, the bird can be brought in overnight then put out in the tree at the start of the morning. If birds are moved far from the tree, the mother bird will not know where to look for her baby. If the tree the baby bird was in has been cut down or removed, moving the bird in the makeshift nest to a close tree or side of the house near where the tree was, will work fine.

When baby squirrels are found, Baranowski told The Newtown Bee in 2017, makeshift nests again work well. A mother squirrel typically feeds her young twice a day in the wild, just like rabbits. The mother rarely returns to the babies when not feeding them. Gloves are the best way to handle squirrels, too, both because as a mammal the mother will smell the change, and because the creature may carry lice. If gloves are not available, Baranowski said rubbing dirt on hands before touching the baby would help to not transfer as much scent.

If someone finds an animal on their property, she advised keeping dogs and cats indoors and only letting dogs out with supervision.

Baranowski said she answers questions by e-mail to her account at wildlifmom@gmail.com. DEEP also has a Wildlife Division hotline, 860-424-3011, for questions.