Animals injured, orphaned in storm being cared for at Dane County Humane Society's Wildlife Center

Dozens of critters injured or orphaned in a storm that raged through the region Wednesday night have found refuge at the Dane County Humane Society’s Wildlife Center.
                                         

Jackie Edmunds, the center’s wildlife rehabilitation training coordinator, said Friday that 67 animals have been brought in over the past two days.

Birds were displaced from their nests due to high winds, and squirrels had to escape flimsy nests destroyed due to falling trees. The struggling animals were rescued after people saw them in their yards or neighborhoods and called the center, Edmunds said.

Among the injured animals are an American toad with an eye injury and a red-tailed hawk with spinal trauma. Other animal patients include American robins, mallard ducklings and sandhill cranes.

Bats, despite being nocturnal animals, cannot see in the dark. Instead they have evolved a similar ability known as use echolocation to navigate and locate prey at night. The bat emits a very high frequency sound and listens for the echo that bounces off objects. The difference in time between emitting the sound and hearing the echo allows the bat to build up a mental “picture” of its environment. Sounds that take longer to bounce back indicate that the surroundings are further away.

Of course, Magneto’s magnetic powers can produce a much wider range of effects, from lifting and manipulating metal objects to rearranging matter (a power definitely not seen in animals). However, his daughter Polaris has the ability to perceive the world as patterns of magnetic energy, which actually isn’t too dissimilar to the powers present in the animal kingdom.