The Santa Monica Police Department’s Animal Control Division, along with the California Wildlife Center, is urging the public to not interfere with healthy juvenile birds that have left their nest and are learning how to fly.

During spring and summer months, healthy fledglings that cannot fly are often mistaken for injured or orphaned birds.  These are young, feathered birds that hop about on the ground.  This is a normal stage of development—the parents are still providing food and guidance, though this may not be apparent.  Such birds must be left alone for the best odds of their long-term survival. 

A bird’s natural survival skills can only be learned from its parents.  Removing a healthy fledgling from its habitat and hand-raising it is not only illegal, this also prevents the bird from ever being able to live on its own in the wild. 

For injured or orphaned wildlife, contact Santa Monica Animal Control at (310) 458-8594.  For a responder outside Santa Monica, call the California Wildlife Center’s hospital line at (818) 591-9453.