Southwest Wildlife Virtual Race Series

Jalapeno is a Kit Fox who came to Southwest Wildlife with his brother, Poblano. They were born at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum (ASDM) as part of the Species Survival Program and are non-releasable.

Kit foxes are the smallest fox in the United States. They are native to the Sonoran and Mohave Deserts. Kit foxes are well adapted to desert living. They’re light in color with large ears which dissipate heat. They derive moisture from the food they eat, such a kangaroo rats. They also create underground burrows to escape the daytime heat and leave the burrow at night when the temperatures are cooler.

The kit foxes love mouscicles (frozen mice) best, but anything new in their enclosure is exciting too. They love enrichment!

Jalapeno

Being well-adapted to running around in the desert is what encouraged Aravaipa Running to adopt a javelina as their mascot for the Javelina Jundred. Aravaipa Running named their adopted javelina Jarriet (pronounced like Harriet). Now if we can only figure out which one she is exactly!

While javelina identify each other using their keen sense of smell, we have a hard time telling them apart, by nose or by sight.

We do have big hearts for these relatives of the camel, hippopotamus and yes, swine. Though javelinas share the iconic pig nose with swine, they have little else in common. First and foremost, javelina are native to the Americas and swine are not.

Javelina come to us on a regular basis as orphaned reds (baby javelina), injured or from being kept as illegal pets.

Jarriet

Winslow was an orphan that Southwest Wildlife rehabilitated and tried to release but wouldn’t go back to the wild—he followed his handlers back to the car. That’s no good: rehabilitated wildlife seeking out humans. Rehabilitating wild kittens from captivity to go back to the wild is really tricky—the more involvement humans have, the less likely that a release will work. Wild animals learn a lot from mom and humans just can’t teach that stuff. It is vital that humans interact with the babies as little as possible but at Southwest Wildife we also need to give them care that nourishes their bodies and their minds. However, often times humans have interacted substantially with the animals prior to them coming into the care of Southwest Wildlife - that contact is hard to repair. With our hard work to constantly improve our methods, Southwest Wildlife's successful release rate continues to climb.

Winslow

When Lou arrived at the sanctuary in the summer of 2012 he was a tiny, spotted fawn.

It had been many years since Southwest Wildlife had taken in a deer fawn and we were totally smitten. We were told he was a doe and a donor named him Luana. Later, a more thorough check revealed that he was definitely a buck! With those facts in hand, he became just Lou.

His first set of antlers were just awful looking. It seems that he was trying out his manliness and somehow broke one of them, leaving it hanging down and looking quite odd. By his third birthday and his second set of antlers they were looking better, and Lou was developing a thick neck and powerful body to carry them. He began to look for anything and anyone to spar with and we could no longer safely enter the enclosure during the breeding season.

Lou Deer

Heavenly had a hard start in life.

Alone, with no mother to care for him and teach him to hibernate, the yearling bear tried his best to survive through a lonely, cold winter, near the Heavenly Ski Resort in Lake Tahoe, California. It wasn’t easy. In March 2014, he was found injured and so thin he probably would not have lived much longer.

Captured and cared for by a terrific wildlife rehabilitator in Lake Tahoe, he recovered and was released back to the wild. Unfortunately, within a few weeks he was back near the ski resort, the only place he’d known as home, looking for food from people.

Heavenly needed a permanent home where he wouldn’t be alone or afraid again. Southwest Wildlife is that home. Together, we'll make sure he doesn't have to worry about his next meal!

Heavenly