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The hospital received 255 animals last week, bringing the total to 2089 for this year.

Forty-eight of the patients came in because they had been caught by cats. Please help us keep wildlife safe in the wild by keeping cats indoors. Your cat will be safer and healthier, and so will the wildlife.

FOR SUMMER CAMP INFORMATION  CONTACT:

Emily Tozzi, Education Program Manager, etozzi@wildlife-museum.org/925-627-2930   

Have grandchildren visiting this summer? Are your kids’ summer mornings booked with school or sports? Lindsay Wildlife Museum’s Wild Times Summer Camp offers four weeklong, afternoon sessions full of learning, animals and fun. Register online now at wildlife-museum.org for these camps:

Dino Mania, June 24-28—What was the Earth was like when dinosaurs were alive? How do scientists find out about the past? Meet birds and reptiles that are some of the dinosaurs’ closest living relatives.

Animal Habitats, July 8-12—Discover habitats you would find from your own backyard to the highest mountain or deepest ocean. Learn how important habitats are to endangered species.

Body Shop, July 22-26—Practice first aid for pets (and yourself) while you learn what animals need when they’re sick or injured. How are animal bodies the same or not the same?

Animal Senses, July 29-Aug 2—How are human and other animal senses different? How do animals’ senses help them survive, from high in the sky to underground?

Lindsay Wildlife Museum connects people with wildlife to inspire responsibility and respect for the world we share. The museum is located at 1931 First Avenue, Walnut Creek, CA, adjacent to Larkey Park. For more information, visit wildlife-museum.org or call 925-935-1978.

The hospital received 256 animals last week, bringing the total for this year to 1834.

Two of the animals brought to the hospital last week were nestling red-shouldered hawks that had fallen from their nest when their palm tree was being cut down. Unfortunately, both of these babies died at the scene. It is very important to wait to trim or remove trees until the end of nesting season (late September through December). Some nests are easy to see, but many are small and can easily be missed by tree trimmers.

A new queen bee has been crowned at Lindsay Wildlife Museum. Two queen bee eggs have been in development in the Hive Alive! exhibit for weeks, being fed royal jelly by female worker bees. A new queen has now emerged, mated with male bees in the outside world, and started laying thousands of eggs in the living hive’s hexagonal cells. (The queen is marked with a white dot to make her easier to find in the hive.)

Hive Alive! was specially designed and constructed for Lindsay Wildlife Museum by beekeeper Mike Stephanos, who takes care of the bees and their hive. Two years in the making, the exhibit showcases the live, working hive inside a ¾” thick plexiglass housing. This lets visitors of all ages get an extreme close-up look at the thousands of mesmerizing bees as they dance, make honey and tend to the queen’s eggs. The observational hive is cosponsored by the Mount Diablo Beekeepers Association.

The former queen bee abdicated during a spring swarm, taking half the hive’s bees with her in an instinctual action to prevent overcrowding. Leaving the museum via the exhibit’s plexiglass bee corridor to the outside world, the old queen and her court buzzed off to establish a new hive somewhere else.

The bees come and go constantly according to their own secret signals—bee dance moves— that tell the colony where to find nectar, and how to get back to the hive inside the museum. Believed to be pollinating flowers and trees in Larkey Park where Lindsay Wildlife Museum is located, and even further afield, the bees carry pollen back to the hive in basket-like structures on the joints of their legs. The hive’s honey is not collected, but eaten by the Hive Alive! bees themselves. The bees are so neat and tidy that the hive is virtually maintenance-free, says Stephanos.

Lindsay Wildlife Museum members will celebrate the Hive Alive! exhibit’s first anniversary at the family-friendly BEE BOP! event, Friday, August 16 from 5-8 PM. Museum members of all ages can party with the pollinators and celebrate bees, birds and butterflies that pollinate our world. Activities will include “bee dancing,” crafts and activities, and learning from beekeepers how bees do what they do.

Located in Walnut Creek’s Larkey Park, Lindsay Wildlife Museum connects people with wildlife to inspire responsibility and respect for the world we share. The museum is a unique natural history museum, wildlife rehabilitation hospital, and environmental education center where wild live animals are just inches away from visitors. Lindsay Wildlife Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday; general admission is $7/adults, $6/senior 65+, $5/children 2-17 and free for members and children under 2 years old. More information is available at wildlife-museum.org.

The hospital received 242 animals last week, bringing the total to 1578 for this year.

One of the patients was a gopher snake that was found tangled in garden netting. Black plastic garden netting seems like a good solution for keeping animals from eating garden plants, but when it lays on the ground, it can entangle animals. If you use garden netting, make sure it’s held off the ground and it is secured to a framework.

The hospital needs wicker baskets to help us return young hawks and owls to their nest sites. Baskets need a sturdy rim and bottom and need to be about 6″ to 9″ deep and 12″to 19″ wide.

The hospital received 212 animals last week, bringing the total for this year to 1336.

One of the patients was an adult western screech owl that was trapped in a chimney. It was successfully rescued, the soot washed off its feathers and is currently in home care. Every year we receive too many animals that have fallen or climbed into chimneys and couldn’t get out. If you don’t already have a cap on your chimney, now is the time to get one in place.

The hospital received 212 animals last week, bringing the total to 1124 for this year.

Seventy-four of the patients were mallard ducklings and we were able to reunite almost half of them with their mothers. We always try to keep baby animals with their parents if at all possible.

The hospital received 175 animals last week, bringing the total for this year to 913.

Spring is really here. In large part because of the wind, we received double the number of animals as we did last week. We are still seeing too many animals caught by cats. It is especially important from now through the end of nesting season (September) to keep cats indoors.

A tiny Pacific chorus frog known for its deep “ribbit,” and a California tiger salamander, an endangered species in parts of the state, are Lindsay Wildlife Museum’s newest amphibian ambassadors.

The frog and salamander have joined the museum’s more than 50 species of native California animals, including a gray fox, owls, eagles, an opossum, snakes, spiders and hawks. Most of the museum’s ambassadors are live, wild animals that can no longer live in the wild because of permanent injury, dependence on human care, or lack of information about where they came from, since animals released outside their native region are not likely to survive.

The Pacific chorus frog (Pseudacris regilla) measures only 1 inch (2.5 cm) in length. The frog stowed away in the car of a Walnut Creek, California resident who had driven to Sacramento and back. This frog species has a loud, pronounced call that is often used for sound effects in movies and TV shows. The frog is now part of educational programs at the museum and the museum’s outreach to schools.

The California tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense) was brought to Lindsay Wildlife Museum’s rehabilitation hospital in Walnut Creek for injuries including an amputated foot. Not only has the salamander recovered, it is regrowing its front left foot! Limb regeneration is known in some salamander species, but this adaptation is not well documented in California tiger salamanders. Museum staff have worked with non-releasable tiger salamanders for decades. Their experienced caregiving is enabling this salamander to heal through its natural regenerative process. When fully recovered, the salamander will become part of the museum’s educational programs.

Educating the public about amphibians, their adaptations, and environmental threats to their survival is especially important since scientists have reported the accelerating disappearance of frog species all over the world, said Michele Setter, director of animal encounters at Lindsay Wildlife Museum. To learn more about the new amphibian ambassadors, or any of the museum’s ambassadors including those on daily public display, go to http://wildlife-museum.org/visit/ambassadors. Lindsay Wildlife Museum connects people with wildlife to inspire responsibility and respect for the world we share.