2024 in a nutshell

Director’s letter

2024 was an amazing year in many ways. We participated in many wonderful education events, with children, high school students, and even seniors. Thanks to one of those high school students, we were able to renovate and rat-proof our brick and mortar facility. We successfully rescued, rehabilitated, and released over 700 wildlife patients, from tiny hummingbirds and deer mice to fawns, coyote pups, and even a bobcat kitten.

2025 will prove to be a make or break year. There are regulatory changes that will take effect mid-2025 that will be very financially and time costly to comply with. We are currently managing multiple devastating disease outbreaks in California wildlife, including chronic wasting disease and the volatile highly pathogenic avian influenza, which is putting additional safety and financial pressure on our team.

Despite the challenges before us, we will persist and make it through, and at the forefront of everything we do will continue to be the health, safety, welfare, and needs of the individual animal that we are privileged to be able to help. They cannot tell us what they most need or want, so we have to listen and watch, and do our best to help them. Sometimes it is easy to juggle all these factors and have a successful outcome. Sometimes it is more difficult and we cannot make everyone happy. But at the end of the day, it is always the welfare of the individual animal that is our highest priority.

We could not do this work without the overwhelming dedication of our coordinator team, who manage 100+ amazing volunteers for daily on-site shifts, transport and emergency rescues, foster care of wildlife orphans, fundraising, events, and much more. Thank you, my amazing coordinators. Thank you also to all our volunteers and our wildlife center partners across the Bay Area. Most of all, thank you for your support, your time, and your love of wildlife. I look forward to walking with you through 2025 and beyond.

Please enjoy some rescue tales from 2024. If you have the time and ability, consider joining our volunteer team and making a tax-deductible, end-of-year donation to help wildlife in 2025. Above all, be safe, be kind to each other, and yourself too.

Happy New Year to you from all of us at Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue.

Sincerely, Lila Travis, Founder and Director

By the numbers

In 2024 we helped 726 animals get a second chance at a normal life:

Animal	Patients
Opossums	183
Squirrels	170
Mice	62
Waterbirds	55
Hummingbirds	55
Pigeons and doves	37
Raccoons	36
Rats	21
Songbirds	21
Crows and ravens	19
Gophers and voles	15
Bats	13
Skunks	8
Raptors	8
Reptiles and amphibians	7
Rabbits	5
Foxes	4
Fawns	3
Wild turkeys	2
Coyote pup	1
Bobcat	1

The hotline helped thousands more: over 2,400 calls and 11,000 texts.

Hope the squirrel

Special thanks to everyone who appreciates Hope, our education ambassador squirrel, who was born with cerebellar hypoplasia. When she is not enriching and educating humans, she has another job: cuddling scared orphaned baby squirrels, a truly invaluable service of compassion. She brings light to our world.

A coyote pup and a bobcat kitten

This year we received a coyote pup who had lost his mother, and a bobcat found on a trail at Jewel Lake. We want to thank our rescue partner Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue for adding this coyote pup to their coyote pup pack, and for adding Jewel, the bobcat kit, to grow up with other kittens her own age. It takes a village.

Some of the 726

Thank you to our rescue partners

Thank you to all our rescue partners at local animal care agencies. We work closely with San Francisco Animal Care and Control, Oakland Animal Services, Berkeley Animal Care Services, Alameda Animal Control, and even as far as Hayward Animal Control, working together to make sure wildlife gets a chance at a normal life.

Help wanted

Yggdrasil has the following volunteer positions available:

• Intake Team. Medical or vet-tech experience is helpful, but we will train.
• Opossum Team Lead. Experience rehabilitating opossums is desired for team leadership.
• Opossum Foster-to-Forest ReWild Team. No experience required.
• Squirrel Infant Foster Care. No experience required, but always appreciated.
• Squirrel Foster-to-Forest ReWild Team. No experience required.
• Build Team. Help construct and repair outdoor wildlife pre-release enclosures.
• Transport Team. Help save lives by driving animals and supplies around the Bay Area.
• Social media team and reel maker. We need help getting the word of YUWR out.

Apply to volunteer

We still need Eastern gray soft-release sites

Do you have friends with green space in the North Bay, South Bay, San Francisco, San Mateo County, or other areas in Eastern gray tree squirrel territory? We need more Eastern gray soft-release sites across the Bay Area, as we’re required to release squirrels within 10 miles of where they were rescued. Email [email protected] if you can help.

The 2025 calendar

Bring in 2025 with a donation gift from Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue: a wildlife calendar of our patients.

Our organization is still 100% volunteer-run and donation-funded after 20+ years. We are a grassroots 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax-deductible. Making a donation in honor of someone is a wonderful gift.