Boulder County
Neil the squirrel is one lucky little furball. Abandoned by his mom when he was still pink, hairless and shut-eyed, he very easily could have been overlooked or ignored or left on the ground for nature to take its course. Instead, some softhearted soul scooped him – and his two litter mates – up and brought them to this critter castle called the Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Sanctuary.
That is how he finds himself at this moment cradled delicately in the arms of animal-care technician Monica Bruehsel, who is feeding him puppy formula with a baby syringe. Neil – the name given him by staffers – is suckling the syringe so exuberantly that milk spills from his chubby cheeks and runs down his tiny chin.
“It’s as close as we can get to their mom’s actual milk,” Bruehsel says of the formula. “They do pretty good on it.”
She then proceeds to rub his … umm … nether region to stimulate his urge to go.
Nestled in a cottonwood grove along Colorado 66 between Longmont and Lyons, the sanctuary is a place where mundane creatures that populate neighborhoods and back alleys can find refuge. When a pigeon is hurt, a raccoon sick or a baby squirrel abandoned, the folks at Greenwood take it in, nurse it back to health and return it to the wild, even if “the wild” happens to be someone’s backyard.
Run almost entirely on donations, Greenwood is the largest wildlife- rehabilitation sanctuary of its kind in Colorado.
The sanctuary has become so popular that it is now in the midst of expansion plans. If plans are approved by Boulder County commissioners, the sanctuary would replace its two trailers, bird “flight cages” and other structures with a new facility, built on the same piece of land it leases from Boulder County Open Space.
“We’ll have twice the space that we have in those trailers,” says Clay Evans, a former newspaper reporter who this year took over as director of the sanctuary. “It’s going to make a huge difference.”
In the past year, the sanctuary has treated as many as 4,000 squirrels, songbirds, raccoons, waterfowl, rabbits and foxes. These aren’t the glamorous animals that typically receive attention. There are no eagles, elk or mountain lions here. But for some, the heart twinges just the same when they see a wounded animal by the side of the road.
“People care just as much (about the smaller animals),” says Libby Osnes-Erie, the sanctuary’s animal-care manager. “We get people who bring us deer mice. And you might think, ‘Oh, why would you rehabilitate a deer mouse?’ But they’re part of nature, and somebody cared enough to bring it in.”
Part of the sanctuary’s mission is to provide comfort and peace of mind to people who don’t know what else to do when they find a hurt or sick animal, Evans says. The sanctuary gets calls every day from people who brought in an animal and want to check on how it’s doing.
“This is a human service,” Evans says. “Yeah, we’re taking care of animals. But ultimately I think we’re serving humans.”
That message – helping people by helping animals – takes a unique twist in Evans’ case. Before he was a newspaper reporter, he was a cowboy who grew increasingly uncomfortable with the things the ranch boss made him do to ground squirrels and coyotes.
“I’m responsible for the deaths of quite a few animals,” he says. “… I don’t do this as penance. But I think it informs me as to why I care. I want to teach people that the first option doesn’t have to be lethal.”
And that is why Neil is currently getting the king’s treatment, with the careful caresses and the five feedings a day. After being abandoned, maybe he deserves a little tenderness.
In a few weeks, Neil will be big enough to go into an outdoor enclosure. After that, he’ll be released. And maybe, someday, he’ll make somebody yell at their dog to stop barking at him.
“I think humans cause a lot of problems for wildlife,” Osnes-Erie says, “and this is just a way to give back to them.”
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
