Box of Baby Raccoons Dropped Off at Woodbridge Police Headquarters

Woodbridge, NJ - Someone tried to drop a box of baby raccoons off at the Woodbridge Animal Shelter over the weekend, but, upon finding the shelter closed, dropped them off at Woodbridge police headquarters instead, shelter manager Heather Campione told Patch.

The problem is, the shelter now has no idea where the baby raccoons came from, or if their mother is still alive, she said.

"I don't know if she's been killed, or if she's been relocated and now can't find her babies," said Campione. "I also don't know if anyone has been bitten from handling these raccoons or their mother. We just have no information at this point."

If the mother raccoon is still alive, she will travel for up to five miles to try and find her babies, Campione said.

"These are animals that have extremely strong and protective mothering instincts," she said.

Campione cautions that it is highly important to look for babies or signs that a mother animal is nursing when removing wild animals this spring, whether it be raccoons in your garden shed or kittens in your backyard. After all, spring is breeding season for wild animals.

It is illegal to take a nursing animal from her babies.

"If you hire an exterminator, make sure it is a humane company. Ask them, 'What do you do with the animals once you catch them?,'" she said. "Wildlife rehabilitation clinics are few and far between in New Jersey, and most of them are inundated this time of year."

Woodbridge animal workers took the box of baby raccoons to Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge, a wildlife rehab clinic in Medford run by the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife. There, they must be bottle fed around the clock. And now that they've been handled by humans, it will be difficult to reintroduce them back into the wild.

Never try to handle wild animals yourself, she warned. You risk getting getting bitten or exposed to disease.

Stock image of a baby raccoon