SCOTT COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) \u2014 A routine car inspection at Paul Miller Mazda turned into an unexpected wildlife rescue when senior technician Alysa Hicks discovered three baby squirrels had made themselves at home in a customer’s engine compartment.<\/p>\n
It was just another Tuesday morning for Hicks until she popped the hood during a maintenance check and found something unusual.<\/p>\n
“I bring the car in, start my inspection, I pop the hood open, I immediately see leaves, debris in between the battery and the air box,” Hicks said.<\/p>\n
What she found next was even more surprising: chewed wires and a cozy nest containing three tiny baby squirrels.<\/p>\n
“I was like, we got a situation. It’s a really cute situation, but how can we handle this?” Hicks said. “It is by far one of the wildest things I’ve seen.” <\/p>\n
Hicks immediately prioritized the squirrels’ safety, working with her supervisors to contact Furry Fixers Wildlife Rescue, who took the animals in for care.<\/p>\n
“When they brought them to us, they were in this perfect nest. They couldn’t have done anything better,” Angela Moore of Furry Fixers said.<\/p>\n
The three babies \u2014 two females and one male, all about two and a half weeks old \u2014 are now thriving in professional care.<\/p>\n
“They’re doing really good, they’re gaining weight, eating very well. Just getting their bellies full and growing up,” said Moore.<\/p>\n
The discovery serves as a timely reminder that it’s currently baby season for wildlife, when expectant mothers seek out warm, protected spaces for their nests \u2014 including car engines.<\/p>\n
“Wildlife in general, they pick some bizarre spots to have their nest in,” said Angela Cox of Critter Ridge Sanctuary.<\/p>\n
Wildlife experts Amanda Moore of Furry Fixers and Cox recommend contacting a wildlife rehabilitation specialist if you’re concerned about a wild animal, and advise against touching them when possible.<\/p>\n
“What other people perceive as oh, I think this animal needs help, that’s not necessarily always the case,” Cox said.<\/p>\n
For car owners looking to prevent similar situations, Hicks offers some practical deterrent suggestions.<\/p>\n
“You can use, like Pine Sol oil, peppermint oil, cinnamon, dryer sheets, to spray the car, spray the wheel well as kind of deterrents against wildlife, they’ll be like, I don’t really like that kind of smell. They’ll stay away from it,” Hicks said.<\/p>\n
Those interested can donate or sign up to volunteer for Furry Fixers here<\/a> or Critter Ridge Sanctuary here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCOTT COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) \u2014 A routine car inspection at Paul Miller Mazda turned into an unexpected…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-481983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}