{"id":740650,"date":"2026-07-03T10:03:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T10:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/740650\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T10:03:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T10:03:31","slug":"saving-lives-one-raccoon-at-a-time-broken-bandit-gives-wildlife-a-fighting-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/740650\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving lives, one raccoon at a time: Broken Bandit gives wildlife a fighting chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

HILLSDALE, Wyo. \u2014 Animal welfare and rehabilitation, especially for wildlife, isn\u2019t an easy line of work. The emotional highs and lows, the discipline and the constant poop cleaning is all a part of the job that Broken Bandit Wildlife Center founder Tricia Wyer said is not for everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a choice; it\u2019s a lifestyle,\u201d Wyer said at the kitchen island in her home, which is currently overrun by 40 orphaned baby raccoons squeaking and scratching at the gates of their enclosure behind her. \u201cIt is truly your life. You\u2019re either in it from sunup to sundown, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, or you\u2019re not in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s especially true for Wyer right now. Since undergoing an intensive back surgery, she\u2019s had to move a lot of her operations into her house and rely even more heavily on her committed team of volunteers. Together, they\u2019ve formed a family built on the shared joys and pains of saving the lives of the most misunderstood and helpless creatures.<\/p>\n

\"\"Baby raccoons attempt an escape of their temporary enclosure at the Broken Bandit Wildlife Center June 30, 2026 (Garrett Grochowski, Cap City News)<\/p>\n

Broken Bandit Wildlife Center is a Hillsdale-based wildlife rehab organization. Wyer has been caring for raccoons, the residents most commonly found at the center\u2019s rural campus 30 minutes east of Cheyenne<\/a>, for over 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody gave me a baby raccoon and said \u2018figure it out,\u2019 and I was hooked on raccoons ever since,\u201d Wyer said over more raccoon chirping. \u201cSo it was the dream to open a rescue. Five years ago, we bought the property and we made the dream a reality. We opened it up, we built our building and it just has been growing every year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The center now cares for much more than raccoons. Skunks, opossums, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, horses, ponies and even exotic animals like zebras, servals and coatimundis, raccoons\u2019 Central and South American cousins, have all found care at the center at some point over the years.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve really seen it all, and every volunteer has a story of an animal that they couldn\u2019t forget. Fluffy the alligator, volunteer Dillon Martin said, stuck with him. He still goes to visit him in Colorado at his new home from time to time. For Wyer, Frank the porcupine stood out. All the volunteers were afraid of him when he stood on his hind legs and approached with arms wide open. It wasn\u2019t until they sent him off to a specialist facility with more experience with the animal that they realized he just wanted hugs.<\/p>\n

As Wyer spoke, one of her volunteers, Angelita Cardinas, brought in a very scared 13-lined ground squirrel that a Laramie County resident found in need of help. The team has to be ready for an intake at any time, regardless of how swamped they already are. Oftentimes, the animals are on the brink of death.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I want to tell them to go fly a kite and go somewhere else and take care of their own problems, [but] we\u2019re not going to because the worst-case scenario, they\u2019re going to dump them off and that animal\u2019s going to suffer,\u201d Wyer said.<\/p>\n

Other times, the animal will come into Broken Bandit\u2019s care after being surrendered by a well-intentioned owner who didn\u2019t know how to take care of the animal or couldn\u2019t handle its wild instincts. Whether the animal is sick, injured or overly dependent on humans, this background can be just as detrimental.<\/p>\n

Social media has only worsened the problem. The team\u2019s all too familiar with videos of \u201cdomesticated\u201d creatures living indoors, wearing diapers and being cute. That\u2019s just what the owners want people to see, they said; the owners don\u2019t show the animals biting, spraying and destroying their indoor environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody has big hearts when it comes to them and everybody wants that one on social media, that one special raccoon that\u2019s going to ride in your car seat or hang out in your house on the couch with you eating popcorn watching a movie,\u201d Wyer said, \u201cbut that\u2019s not the reality of it. Usually by October we start getting slammed with phone calls because somebody raised this raccoon and it wasn\u2019t that glamorous one that they saw online.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Tricia Wyer, founder of the Broken Bandit Wildlife Center, checks in on the permanent resident raccoons June 30, 2026. Due to medical reasons or irreversible habituation, these animals cannot be safely returned to the wild (Garrett Grochowski, Cap City News)<\/p>\n

\"\"A raccoon investigates the camera as Tricia Wyer, founder of the Broken Bandit Wildlife Center, checks in on some of the animals under her care June 30, 2026 (Garrett Grochowski, Cap City News)<\/p>\n

\"\"Three resident raccoons at the Broken Bandit Wildlife Center June 30, 2026 (Garrett Grochowski, Cap City News)<\/p>\n

Around-the-clock feedings, foregoing vacations and getting hands dirty aren\u2019t the only costs associated with the job. The volunteers know all too well the emotional toll that comes from caring for helpless, sick or injured creatures.<\/p>\n

Volunteer Breanna Teets, who has endured plenty of those experiences, said workers at Broken Bandit have to turn off the emotional parts of their brain sometimes just to get through the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve all seen our fair share of death and injury and some really rough stories of circumstances of how animals have gotten here. At the end of the day, it may sound callous, but the day has to go forward,\u201d Teets said. \u201cYou have so many other mouths that need bottles and that need food or love. It\u2019s really difficult, but there\u2019s not a lot of room to shut down, to be honest with you. Everything has to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pain catches up, though. Teets said that in those quiet moments before bed or during calmer periods in the fall after raccoon baby season ends, she will lie in bed and think about the animals that changed her, both positively and negatively.<\/p>\n

All of the team goes through it. Being able to relate to each other\u2019s struggles and their mutual love for the center\u2019s animals keeps them healthy and together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to rely on one another or we\u2019d fall apart,\u201d Cardinas said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe also laugh together and giggle together and we may have to cry together,\u201d Teets added. \u201cFive baby skunks running around the kitchen and jumping at you and you\u2019re just like, \u2018Yay!\u2019 All of us turn into little kids. We\u2019re like, \u2018Did you see the new baby?\u2019 We\u2019re all very kid-like in that way, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

They also hold each other accountable. Having volunteers who have bonded the way the folks running Broken Bandit have means they\u2019ll understand when one of them says they took an animal\u2019s death extra hard and need some time. They\u2019ll make sure they don\u2019t make a mistake that could cost an animal\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be OK with being accountable and owning your mistakes because you learn things all the time out here and there\u2019s things that you would never know or that slip your mind because you\u2019re in the pace of everything,\u201d Teets said. \u201cBeing accountable, being honest and being kind are the biggest things out here. We\u2019re all pretty close enough where we all communicate pretty effectively. If anything changes with diets, you have to be on it to communicate with the group, like \u2018This is changing. This animal\u2019s not eating. This animal has an injury, cuts on its feet,\u2019 or something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s especially difficult when volunteers have other things going on in their personal lives. That can\u2019t affect the job, Teets added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you walk through these doors, you\u2019ve got to be 100%, because if you miss something, that could be the difference in the animal being there that night and not being there the next morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

And they all do it for free. When they\u2019re not working their day jobs, Teets, Martin, Cardinas and all of the center\u2019s other volunteers will come do whatever it takes to keep the center running.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got to b a special kind of crazy to do this kind of work, Wyer said.<\/p>\n

\"\"A barn cat protects the equine residents of the Broken Bandit Wildlife Center in Hillsdale, Wyoming, on June 30, 2026. The center cares for multiple horses, ponies and even a zebra (Garrett Grochowski, Cap City News)<\/p>\n

As many bad experiences as there have been, there have been just as many, if not more, incredible ones. Broken Bandit\u2019s ultimate goal is to rehabilitate wildlife to a point where they can be safely released back into the wild. As cute as it is being able to interact with cuddly baby animals that most people will never get to touch, that experience pales in comparison to the feeling of watching an animal successfully revert back to its animal instincts.<\/p>\n

Wyer and her team can see it. As an animal gets closer to full health, they\u2019ll begin introducing a more wild diet and keep it in a special area. It\u2019ll grow more wary of humans to a point where touching and hand feeding are impossible. That\u2019s when it\u2019s ready to go home and the folks at Broken Bandit know they did their job.<\/p>\n

When they\u2019re ready, one of the volunteers will take them to a location far away from people, where they have access to food and water, for release.<\/p>\n

\u201cGive them a fighting chance at having a real wild life,\u201d Wyer said. The center isn\u2019t a zoo or an adoption center. The quicker an animal is back into the wild, the better. If it has to stay, it\u2019ll remain with Broken Bandit and caretakers who know how to look after wildlife. Wyer clarified that Broken Bandit Wildlife Center will never adopt out an animal other than horses and other domestic animals it takes in on an irregular basis.<\/p>\n

The animals that aren\u2019t released are too physically or cognitively disabled to survive in the wild, such as Angel the raccoon, who fell 30 feet from a industrial building\u2019s rafters onto hard concrete and is now permanently disabled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe animals that we keep here, we keep here because they can\u2019t survive on their own,\u201d Wyer said. \u201cBut we also have big huge elaborate enclosures for them, we have shelters from the weather, we have heated enclosures for animals during the wintertime to where they\u2019re not house pets. They can\u2019t be. That\u2019s not what they were born for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"View of a portion of the Broken Bandit Wildlife Center\u2019s outdoor campus on June 30, 2026 (Garrett Grochowski, Cap City News)<\/p>\n

\"\"Bob and Cat, resident bobcats at the Broken Bandit Wildlife Center, exit their house June 30, 2026 (Garrett Grochowski, Cap City News)<\/p>\n

Despite being entirely run by volunteers and funded by donations, Broken Bandit\u2019s campus is sprawling. Each species has large enclosures separated from the others where they can rest, play and stay relatively undisturbed by humans.<\/p>\n

It takes $3,000\u2013$5,000 a month to maintain the facility, buy food and care for the animals. Broken Bandit Wildlife Center relies exclusively on community support to pay for those expenses. If Laramie County residents are interested in helping make sure the work at Broken Bandit Wildlife Center can continue, donations are accepted at the organization\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The center also accepts game meat, other special foods and animal care supplies that interested residents can inquire about donating on Facebook<\/a>. Additionally, the center participates in community fundraising events like WyoGives Day, when residents can financially support the organization and help win it additional monetary perks. See Broken Bandit\u2019s WyoGives Day page here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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