Humane Wildlife Conflict Resolution Guide

Is your agency or organization overwhelmed with panicked calls from the public about wildlife problems? Do you spend staff time and energy dealing with these calls? If so, this manual is for you!

Whether you’re an animal control officer, police dispatcher, shelter staffer, wildlife rehabilitator or veterinary or nature center staffer, this manual will give you the answers you need. Our aim is to provide easy, practical solutions—over the phone—for the wildlife dilemmas you encounter daily.

What are the benefits of phone advising?

• Helps you resolve problems in a matter of minutes, rather than having personnel respond on site. The labor savings can be huge.
• Provides effective and humane advice for common wildlife problems.
• Corrects public perceptions about seemingly “orphaned” wild animals and helps people understand when animals truly need help.
• Reduces the number of wild animals that may have otherwise been trapped, relocated and killed in misguided attempts to solve conflicts.
• Increases public tolerance for wildlife and builds goodwill toward your facility or agency .

This manual contains our best tips and tricks based on decades of experience running a wildlife hotline and providing hands-on work in the field resolving conflicts with wildlife. It includes three main sections:

1. Species-specific profiles that provide relevant natural history tips and solutions for common problems.
2. Relevant topics (Preventing orphaning, rabies myths and the reality, what’s wrong with trap-loan programs, etc.).
3. Appendix information, including web resources and training available from the Humane Society of the United States. We hope this manual helps you handle the public’s wildlife problems.