If you have found a baby songbird

Hello and thank you for your concern for the bird(s) you have found.

For information about baby songbirds, please click here.

PLEASE NOTE: The staff and volunteers at Toronto Wildlife Centre (TWC) deeply regret that we have been forced to make the decision not to respond to phone calls about baby songbirds. TWC has never had to refuse calls of this kind on the past. However, in the past few weeks, TWC’s Wildlife Hotline has been so overwhelmed with phone calls that it is crippling our organization. So many calls are coming in that we are sometimes 3 to 4 hours behind even just taking messages off – with volunteers taking messages off our voicemail system non-stop for up to 10 to 12 hours straight. This volume of calls / messages means that we are not responding to anyone in a timely fashion – and the wild animals that we all care about are suffering as a result.

Toronto Wildlife Centre’s Wildlife Hotline is the busiest hotline we know of in North America, and is getting busier and busier each year. Our highly trained staff and wonderful support volunteers are working to the point of exhaustion trying to keep up, but the call volume keeps increasing as Toronto Wildlife Centre’s name becomes more widely known. We are often receiving over 200 phone calls each day and, right now, over 100 of those calls each day are about baby songbirds.

Many organizations, including municipalities all across Ontario, have on their public voice mail or websites to call Toronto Wildlife Centre about any wildlife issues. These same municipalities, with the exception of Pickering and Richmond Hill (who are providing some funding to help with wildlife issues in their areas), do not provide TWC with any funding. The City of Toronto, for example, has repeatedly turned down our requests for funding assistance – to provide you and wildlife with the help you need. If you live in the City of Toronto and want to express your concern for the fact that most of the city’s wildlife services are being provided by a charity, please contact your city councilor. If you are not sure who to contact, here is a link: http://app.toronto.ca/im/council/councillors.jsp.

As a charity, we are constantly trying to raise funds to ensure that wild animals and people with wildlife-related concerns can get the help they need. Additional funding is urgently needed in order to respond to more calls about baby songbirds and admit baby songbirds. This funding would be used to expand our hotline capabilities as well as build critically needed songbird flight cages. For more information about making a donation, please visit this link to find out ways you can help.

We thank you for your understanding. We are providing the most services we possibly can at the moment with the resources that we have.

Sincerely,

Nathalie Karvonen
Executive Director

For information about baby songbirds, please click here.