Volunteer!

We Rancho volunteers are an enthusiastic and varied group of people who do everything from fostering baby raccoons for several months a year from our homes to answering our wildlife hotline, helping to start our humane pest control company, cleaning cages, building new rehabilitation pens, graphic design, website design, fundraising, newsletter and flyer design, transporting animals and supplies, grant-writing, and anything else that you think of that might be helpful to our organization. 

Because we have no paid positions, we depend upon the kindness of strangers.  But you will not be a stranger for long.  Joining our team is fun, always interesting,  always different, and you are guaranteed to meet all sorts of people who also love to work with animals (humans included!). 

You don’t need to have knowledge or skills; we will train you to work safely and humanely with injured and orphaned wildlife.  If you’re 18 or under, you must have parental permission.

This short video, by volunteer Shelley Ladd, shows a couple of baby raccoons' progress from early babyhood to confident juveniles. These wonderful animals are curious, adaptable, adventurous and eager to be the free, wild creatures they were meant to be. Part of our jobs as responsible rehabilitators is to allow the young raccoons to become independent of humans and interested in being sociable with only their own species. Songs used in the video are 'You Have Been A Friend To Me', by L.Q Jones, and 'Free', by Donavon Frankenreiter.

If you’re interested in helping wildlife, there are many opportunities to get involved, not just with raccoons, but with oppossums, skunks, squirrels, and every animal the day brings. Rancho Raccoon is a project of Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue, so if raccoons are not your thing, try our other avenues for helping keep our wildlife wild, healthy and free!

To find out more about volunteering, click here!