From skunks to snakes, more wildlife is emerging in San Diego’s hot summer months.<\/p>\n
SAN DIEGO \u2014 Wildlife has become a more common sight across San Diego County this summer, not just near canyons and trails, but in neighborhoods and even Downtown San Diego.<\/p>\n
ReneeClaire, who lives in Clairemont, said she and her dog, Willow, have noticed the difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s been amazing, there’s been more birds in the sky and locally,\u201d she said. \u201cI’ve also noticed many more reptiles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Briana Eisan, a wildlife veterinarian assistant with Project Wildlife, said the spring and summer always brings an uptick in activity because animals are reproducing, and the heat also drives animals out of hiding in search of water and shelter.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur Virginia opossums are one of the most common ones, we also do have a healthy skunk, raccoon and coyote population down here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Briana added that San Diego is seeing more bird activity because it\u2019s peak migration season. On top of that, it\u2019s also rattlesnake season.<\/p>\n
When it comes to living alongside wildlife, Briana said the best approach is to admire them from a distance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ask that we never attempt to touch, feed cuddle or keep wildlife on our own,\u201d Briana said.<\/p>\n
To help, residents are urged not to leave out trash, food or water. Turning off lights at night can also make a big difference for migrating birds.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the light pollution that we have can be kind of disorienting for our birds, and cause a lot of window strikes,\u201d Briana explained.<\/p>\n
Protecting wildlife also means keeping people and pets safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you do come across a rattlesnake in your kind of private property, we do have our Humane Law Enforcement that’s available in San Diego County to come help safely remove them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Project Wildlife also recommends keeping cats indoors, walking dogs on leashes and taking extra precautions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m taking her for rattlesnake aversion training this weekend, because I do a lot of backpacking and hiking,\u201d ReneeClaire said of her dog, Willow.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s illegal to relocate wildlife in San Diego County, Briana said injured animals can be brought to Project Wildlife for care.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you see any obvious injuries, anything looks broken or has blood, the animal likely needs to come in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
For some residents, the increase in sightings has been a welcome change.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the increase in wildlife. Yeah, absolutely,\u201d ReneeClaire said.<\/p>\n
You can find more tips from the Humane Society\u00a0here<\/a>, along with a contact for their Humane Law Enforcement here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From skunks to snakes, more wildlife is emerging in San Diego’s hot summer months. SAN DIEGO \u2014 Wildlife…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":204104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-204103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-sandiego","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115155531463510858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}