Erica Miller Wildlife Rehab

Erica Miller Wildlife Rehab Licensed in wildlife. ODNR RVS, fawn, bobcat, reptile, amphib. USFW fed permit. Cert FDA euth tech
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Update!! Someone is on the way!! ❤️ EMERGENCY!!!!! There’s a baby screech owl that fell out of a nest. Is there a tree...
04/12/2026

Update!! Someone is on the way!! ❤️
EMERGENCY!!!!! There’s a baby screech owl that fell out of a nest. Is there a tree company that wants to return it to its mama?!?! 🦉 located in Kettering. I will definitely give you a shout out and post a video! Please!!!

04/10/2026

One of the best parts of this gig is the support I receive from so many great organizations in the area. As you can imagine, baby season is a busy time every year. It’s not possible without formula, heating pads, enclosures , medicine, and specialized diet for each species. Support from the community is essential all year round, but especially during baby season. A special thanks to Brownie Troop 3554 in Centerville, OH, a wonderful group of 6-9 year old girls, for understanding that it truly takes a village! Thank you for supporting wildlife, the community, and this volunteer mission! 🐦‍⬛🐰🦉🐠🦝🦌🐥🦆🦫🦅🕊️🦢🐿️🐇

Donations can be made via my Amazon wishlist, Venmo, or PayPal. Thank you all for your support!

Amazon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/2FJCB20L8FHG7
Venmo: EricaMillerWildlife
PayPal: [email protected]

03/23/2026

Annual repost. Yes, it’s funny! But folks need to hear and learn! Too many calls of “I know you said , but….” You’re not the exception to the rule. Let’s try to leave wildlife where it needs to be, in the wild!!

🦌 Adult deer with spots? These are called ghost spots and it’s very rare, but I guarantee in the comments there will be ...
11/18/2025

🦌 Adult deer with spots? These are called ghost spots and it’s very rare, but I guarantee in the comments there will be hunters or outdoorsmen that have seen this rare phenomenon.
Fawns are born with many white spots scattered across the reddish-brown coat. These spots serve as camouflage — they mimic dappled sunlight shining through leaves and help the fawn remain concealed from predators. These spots normally fade when the hair coat is replaced by the adult or sub-adult coat fairly early in life, (3-4 months of age, and certainly by the first winter ❄️)
After the fawn stage, the adult white-tailed deer coat becomes more uniformly colored (reddish-brown in summer, grayish-brown in winter) and the typical white markings become restricted to predictable areas (belly, throat, inner legs, underside of tail, rump patch). 

🦌 What about mature deer with faint or residual spots (“ghost 👻 spots”)? I had to dig around. Most of the pictures were sightings from hunters on social media saying things like “I know this buck is 4 years old. He still has spots?” When you go to ask why, there’s no real research. The mainstream sources do note rarities and mention that on rare occasion adults with residual spotting are observed. One article says: “but in very unusual cases the spots may stick around for years. Once in a great while an adult deer is harvested with fawn-like spots. … It is not known what causes the retention of these spots in rare cases.” Another states that while spots fade in most white-tailed deer, “On rare occasions, white-tailed deer have been observed with spots that persist into adulthood.” 

This particular adult deer in the picture is one that frequents here and I know exactly how old she is.

So I want to know, who has seen an adult (older than 18 months) deer with ghost spots? 🦌

11/06/2025

Here is my beloved daughter, Lorena Bobbitt🔪, showing off some cool instincts… POOPING 💩 .

Bobcats 🐾 are highly territorial wild cats that use scent marking as a major part of communication.
They may lay turds in water, and there are some interesting biological and behavioral reasons for it. 🤔

1. Instinct to Hide Their Scent.
In the wild, bobcats 🐱 often try to conceal their scent from both predators and prey.
• Predator avoidance: Covering or washing away stinky doo doo helps prevent larger predators (like coyotes 🐺 or mountain lions 🦁) from tracking them.
• Hunting advantage: By reducing odor 👃🏼 around their resting or hunting areas, bobcats make it harder for prey animals to detect their presence. Droppin lincoln logs 🪵 in water is an effective way to mask or remove scent traces. 😷 Lorena Bobbitt will even enter in the water at one point, drop a brown bomber 🌋 , then get out of the water at a completely different spot!

2. Environmental and Territorial Context.
In the wild, a bobcat’s p**pies 💩 can serve two opposite functions:
• Marking territory — leaving f***s in visible spots (especially with urine marking 💦 ).
• Concealment — hiding duces’s near dens or feeding sites to stay undetected. When they choose water, it’s usually a concealment behavior, not a marking one. 😶‍🌫️

3. Individual or Learned Habits
Just like domestic cats 🐈 , bobcats can develop personal habits or preferences. Some may learn to grow a brown monkey tail 🐒 in water, even in the toilet 🚽 , if they thought it reduced smell. (Bobcat sh*t smells bad! 🤮)

Just when you thought you knew it all, you watched my bobcat p**p in a pond and it’s probably the coolest thing you’ve learned about today. 😂
**p **t

*Lorena Bobbitt 👑 is a USDA licensed bobcat and is personal property. 😊

10/03/2025

It’s Thursday Oct 2, 2025, and here’s your Thursday tour of all the animals waiting to be released.
We’ve made it through the busiest part of the year, so this will be the last Thursday tour for 2025. Just under 2000 animals in for the year and counting. The end of weekly videos doesn’t mean that rehab is over for the year, it just means that baby season is over and I don’t have as much to show you every week. As the season winds down, the remaining animals are working on getting ready for release while the weather is still mild, and they can learn to forage, find homes, and be wild before winter. Once everyone has been released, the fun process of power washing cages will commence. Everything is deep cleaned, from cages, to accessories, floors, and walls. Trust me, that’s quite a process.
Yes, I rehab throughout the winter! But as you can see, things tend to slow down when baby seasons stop. Winter rehabs are mostly injuries, which doesn’t make great video content - until February (or sometimes January) comes, and the pinky squirrels start rolling in again. I’m not going anywhere; tours will start back up in spring when the babies start arriving. As always, call for any wildlife injuries, needs, or concerns. Thank you to everyone who tunes in with their love of fur babies and cuddle puddles, or whatever keeps y’all coming back every week. An extra huge thanks to those of you who have donated supplies and money to help out!! From cage supples to bird formula, squirrel formula, food, produce, cleaning supplies, etc. It’s much appreciated and very much needed!! This is massively expensive to undergo and I am not paid or receive any funding except from donations and my own pocket! 🐿️🦝🦆🦌😺🐢🌎

09/26/2025

Thursday, September 25, 2025 and here’s your Thursday tour of all the animals that are looking forward to doing wild things for all their future Thursdays!
Migratory birds - I’m getting a lot of calls about window strikes, as we see an increase of birds traveling through on their way south. Lots of warbler and hummingbird calls. Our resident hummingbirds were released about a week and a half ago, and we wish them the best as they travel to warmer lands!
Next week is my favorite holiday, World Rabies Day! (Actually my second favorite behind the Fourth of July 🇺🇸). Thankfully Ohio hasn’t seen raccoon rabies in many years, because of the oral bait drops (I did a post about this about a month ago, with all sorts of good information about Ohio’s rabies prevention). In short, these bait drops are why we don’t see cases of rabies in our raccoons, foxes, etc. This is also why our numbers are so much lower than neighboring states, and why border counties are blacked out from rehabbing raccoons. Laws are laws for a reason. Bat rabies is a different strain, and you should always take any bat bite seriously. Trust me, I’m a certified rabies expert! Everytime I feel bad I claim to have “caught rabies again”, I’m always humored at the responses from “I hope you get better soon,” to “that makes sense because of what you do.” Rabies is fatal. Don’t catch it. 🦇 🦝 🦊🐿️🕊️🦌🐢

09/19/2025

It’s Thursday September 18, 2025, and here’s your Thursday tour of the animals who wish to be released before winter!

Part of the changes animals go through as the days get shorter is many will start going into rut in the next couple mos. This means behavior changes, and their instincts kick up a notch. We will be approaching the time of year when people who have broken the laws and kept summer babies as pets, realize why that’s a bad idea!

Warm weather extends the time that animals have to prep for winter, which is helpful where we live. They’ll start going through hormonal changes here now as they days get shorter and instinctively bulk up for winter, cache food, etc. We’ve done a great job at getting as many animals through rehab as we can so they don’t have to be over wintered, and that will keep up in the coming weeks.

Hummingbirds. Many of what you see outside in our area now are ones passing through on migration. You’ll see a lot of activity at dawn and dusk. If you have feeders out, keep them CLEAN (every couple days, they need to be cleaned and refilled, because dirty feeders and fermented food can make them sick) - and make sure you have the proper mix. No honey, no brown sugar. If you want to leave your flowers up a tad longer, pollinators appreciate it as a natural source of nectar is always preferred to feeders.
Lorena Bobbitt is a personal pet to again make that clear. Bathsheba the deer was NOT raised by me and is in no way contained.

09/12/2025

It’s Thursday September 11, 2025, and here’s your Thursday tour of animals that needed a little help during the season of illness and injury. While I’m still intaking a whole lot of orphaned bunnies and squirrels, we’ve passed the point of the season where fawns are logistically able to be brought in. At this point of the year, they’re just too big to be captured and transported safely. Yes, i know they still have spots. They don’t just fall off, folks. I can only treat animals that can be brought here, and we have to think with logic when making plans that are best for an animal. You can’t throw a grown deer in the back of a car and expect it to go well. A lot of folks ask how you get into wildlife rehabilitation. This gig is regulated by the state and federal government, and you have to take classes, apply for your permit, and be inspected by the state. Once you receive your permit, you need to follow the minimum standards of care in order to keep said permit. Every animal that’s brought in needs to be accounted for, which is why I have this giant stack of intake forms. There are requirements for how long animals can be kept in rehab, specific cage criteria, and guidelines for release - how to know an animal is ready, where it can be released, etc. These guidelines change for each animal, especially rabies vector species. And all of it needs to be recorded and accounted for. I say this with the upmost respect - this truly is not like rehabbing cats and dogs, where zero laws, permits, and guidelines are in place. Yes, you may love animals. But the animals you see here are not strays, they’re all property of the state and federal government, and need to be treated as such.

09/05/2025

Thursday September 4, 2025, and here’s your Thursday tour. We’re moving right along with fall baby season, late season birds, and illness/injuries. There’s a “sweet spot” regarding how long animals, especially orphans, stay in wildlife rehab. Too little time can set them up for failure, and too much time can actually cause some animals to regress. This time of year, changing weather is a big consideration as we prepare to transition into fall, and from fall to winter. Animals take many cues and instincts from their environment. Light and dark cycles, or the change between day and night, helps animals know when it’s time to mate, and when season change is coming. How do they know it’s coming? The same way you know it’s coming, except their bodies rely on this info for survival. The days become cooler, the daylight hours become fewer, and for some animals, food sources start to change or become scarce. For many birds, like our hummingbirds, this signals them that it’s time to migrate. Flowers become less abundant, days are shorter and cooler. For other animals, their bodies naturally start to respond to the environmental changes to prepare for the season ahead. What does that mean for wildlife? As days become cooler and daylight hours shorten, animals go through hormonal changes that cause them develop their winter coat. If you’ve ever called me in fall and told me about the animals you’ve illegally kept all summer, you have likely heard me tell you many things, including the fact that the animal is not equipped for survival because their time in the house has prevented them from developing their winter coat. When animals are kept inside your house, not only are they living your life of high crime, but they’re also being kept in artificial light and controlled temperature. It is crucial that animals in rehab are exposed to natural light (that’s the sun, folks), light and dark cycles, and changes in temperature. Their bodies know what to do to prepare them for the winter ahead, and it starts now as these cooler temps and shorter days begin. Many animals also start to develop fat reserves and start caching food (watch the squirrels in your yard begin to bury things!). Ideally, most animals in rehab are able to be released in fall with plenty of time to naturally acclimate for winter. In the instances where they’ve not had this time to acclimate, some may need to be over-wintered. Though we may not like these shorter days and the cooler weather moving in, these subtle changes are crucial for our wildlife surviving the winter ahead.

08/29/2025

It’s Thursday August 29, 2025, and here’s your Thursday tour of animals who wish they didn’t live in my garage. The bunny and squirrel calls are nonstop! Lots of bottle baby squirrels that will be eating on their own in the next couple weeks. Lots of bunnies who find their way here because of everyone’s dogs. As always, call first - reuniting with mom is always first choice, if the animal is well and not injured. WNV is still hitting raptors and crows really hard. If a crow, owl, or hawk allows you to approach it, that means their situation is dire. EHD deer numbers are climbing. Ohio Division of Wildlife has an updated map with reported cases by county. Lots of migrations happening soon! Monarchs are beginning their journey south to central Mexico for the winter. Hummingbird migration happens between now and October, (depending on the type), as they leave their breeding grounds and head to their wintering grounds (imagine having to migrate to reproduce - i bet the human race would be smarter and in much better shape!). Pretty soon they’ll be making their way across the Gulf of America 🇺🇸 ! How do they know when to migrate? They notice a difference in available nectar sources, as flowers start to diminish, as well as shortening days. While time consuming to raise, they are really neat birds! Other birds, such as warblers, nighthawks, vireos, and broad winged hawks, to name a few, will start passing through soon on their way south for the winter. The timing of the migration depends on the type of bird, but fall migrations generally occur between August and October/November. A lot of birds follow the Lake Erie shoreline (that’s north of us, folks) before turning south to finish their journey. There may be visitors in the area in the next couple months as different types of birds make their way to their winter locations. Thanks to everyone who calls first and asks for advice, and listens. It makes it easier to rehab these critters when folks are willing to do their part, listen to advice from a rehabber, and follow instructions. If you ever feel inclined to donate to help me help these critters, there’s a link on my website www.EricaMiller.org I have the best followers and I thank you for your support and kind words!

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Miamisburg, OH

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