That would depend on what you mean by help, if you mean will they come and remove a Destin squirrel from your back fence, no they won't, but if you just want good advice then they are definitely your first phone call. If on the other hand you have a possibly dangerous snake in an urban area then your local animal control should come and take care of it, there job basically in most places but not all is to protect the community and a squirrel sitting on your back fence is not considered dangerous but a rattlesnake on your back porch is considered extremely dangerous.



I have read in a few places that the way to get Florida animal control to respond to non-threatening animals is to mention that the animal is behaving strangely and you possibly think it may be rabid, they generally respond to this but you should also know that if they get there and the animal is obviously not rabid they will not be happy. The main function of city and county animal services is actually to police the animal protection and anti-cruelty laws, any animals surrendered to these authorities is almost automatically euthanized, they do not have the facilities or the money to care for surrendered animals and they also know that relocating most wild animals is a slow death for the animal.

There is one option you could attempt to use, that is Destin wildlife rehabilitators, these people are mostly volunteers who received money from governments for expenses and they do keep the animal alive, they get the animals checked by vets to make sure it's healthy, they feed it, groom it and generally look after it until they believe is ready to be returned to its natural environment. These people generally get a very good idea of what constitutes this particular animals natural environment and they will attempt to release it in an environment they know it can handle, and sometimes that means releasing what was removed as a pest and putting it back into a similar environment where it is most likely just going to become a pest again.

The biggest thing to be aware of when you are dealing with a wild Florida animal that is a pest for you is to be aware of what laws and ordinances apply to these particular animals, in some cases you will find the animals are totally protected and you can do nothing more than shoo them away, whereas with another animal it is okay to bring out the 50 Cal and blow its head off, but in all cases the fines for breaking the rules are pretty steep so it is always best to check.

Visit our Destin wildlife trapping home page to learn more about us.