Creature Feature

  • Opportunistic Omnivore

    Animals like raccoons, coyotes, and opossums thrive in human spaces not because they’re pests, but because they’re adaptable problem-solvers helping to clean up and stabilize ecosystems.

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  • Save the Snakes

    Snakes are shy, mostly harmless animals wrongly feared as aggressive threats, yet they play a critical role in controlling pests and maintaining ecological balance.

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  • Scavengers of North America

    Scavengers such as vultures, opossums, and coyotes perform essential work by preventing disease, recycling nutrients, and keeping our environment clean—despite their unfair reputations.

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  • Clever Carnivores

    Carnivores like foxes, bobcats, and hawks are intelligent and ecologically vital predators whose misunderstood behavior helps keep wildlife populations in balance.

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  • Pesky Rodents

    Rodents are often dismissed as nuisances, but they are critical to ecosystems as seed dispersers, prey animals, and soil engineers—and can be humanely managed through exclusion, not poison.

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Wild Bites

  • Snakes are shy and don't chase people. They prefer to avoid vs attack predators.

  • Bats can see and navigate quite well. They are unlikely to get caught in your hair during flight.

  • Although dangerous, rabies is a rare infliction. It is estimated that less than 1% of bats carry the disease.

  • Skunks are limited in the number of times they can repeatedly spray. They attempt to avoid predators before they spray them.

  • Coyotes are naturally wary of humans. If they are following you, you may be near their den and they are trying to get you to leave the area.

Under Pressure

  • Hunting, trapping, and Persecution

    Cause: Sport hunting, predator control, retaliation.

    Effect: Some species are locally extirpated. Unregulated or illegal killing disrupts ecosystems.

  • Poisons and pesticides

    Cause: Rodenticides, herbicides, insecticides.

    Effect: Non-target animals suffer secondary poisoning, like hawks, owls, foxes, and bobcats eating poisoned prey. Insects that birds and amphibians rely on are also harmed.

  • Habitat Loss And Fragmentation

    Cause: Urban development, agriculture, deforestation, road building.

    Effect: Animals lose access to food, shelter, and breeding grounds. Populations become isolated, which reduces genetic diversity and resilience.

  • Vehicle Collisions

    Cause: Roads cutting through wildlife habitats.

    Effect: Millions of animals are killed annually by vehicles. Some species suffer major population declines in road-dense areas.

  • Outdoor Pets

    Cause: Free-roaming domestic cats and dogs.

    Effect: Cats alone kill an estimated 2–4 billion birds and 12+ billion small mammals annually in the U.S. They also spread disease to wildlife.

  • Climate Change

    Cause: Greenhouse gas emissions from human activity.

    Effect: Alters habitats and food availability, disrupts migration and breeding cycles, increases disease and extreme weather events.

  • Human food and trash

    Cause: Unsecured garbage, intentional feeding, compost, pet food.

    Effect: Wildlife become dependent, lose fear of people, and are more likely to be hit by cars, harmed, or euthanized as “nuisance” animals.

  • Misinformation and fear

    Cause: Cultural myths, exaggerated media, lack of education.

    Effect: Snakes, bats, coyotes, and others are killed out of fear or misunderstanding, even when they pose no threat and serve important ecological roles.

Listen up.

Want to learn more? Listen in to our podcast, where we dive deep into the myths about wild animals and explore ways to help these amazing creatures.