Baby animals are the cutest things on earth. There are lots of sites dedicated to them (I was hooked on this one for a while). At infancy, everything is just so darn small and snuggly… but, as harmless and unwise in the world as they are, when we’re talking wild animals, I think we have to let them be just that.

Wildlife rehabilitator Lil Anderson has to walk that line as part of her job. [Correction: Anderson's work for the OMNR does not include wildlife rehabilitation. See her comment below.] Author of the newly released book “Pond Memories” (I’m a sucker for a pun), Anderson relates stories of taking on rescued animals, such as a baby moose, a beaver, a fawn and others. Anderson works for Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources. In her stories, it seems the most of the animals that come to her are delivered by hunters who’ve either startled off a mother, causing it to abandon its young, or the hunter has killed the mother, but felt too guilty to also kill its offspring.

The book does offer interesting insight into young animal behaviour, and shows how Anderson struggles to cut emotional ties and transition her charges back to the landscape.

As I read the book, it struck me as odd that we have resources in place to look after a few babies, rather than robust protection for wild habitats (parks you can log don’t “cut it” for me) since we’ve swallowed up, or at least built roads into so many wild places already. Perhaps the more we let wild things be wild, and stay out of it, the better. But habitats have shrunk, so perhaps they’re becoming more like vast zoos we must actively manage.

What’s your view? Should we be closely involved in managing habitats? Should we just put a fence around them and stay out? Am I overreacting?