I received a phone call yesterday from a local lady. Somebody gave her 2 baby sparrows. She said they are getting annoying in the house and the kids got tired playing with them.

I already had a bad feeling...kids playing with birds? I agreed to take them and asked her to please take the birds to my rescue.

A few minutes later I observed 4 kids of around 12 years of age walking down the street, jumping around, bending over every few feet to pick something up off the street.

Turned out these where the little sparrows trying to get away from the kids. They handed me the birds and I took them inside to check them out.

Both where nearly starved to death, dehydrated, overheated and completely exhausted. They were just sitting there with their eyes closed, too weak to eat or drink.

I find this one of the most horrible animal cruelty issues, but in reality it was "just" ignorance, lack of knowledge, and the total absence of common sense. The outcome was the same. It caused these baby birds to die a horrible death.

If you have to intervene because you KNOW a bird is orphaned, place it in a box, call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, and DO NOT handle it. Birds are scared of people and playing and handling it will stress it out. I have seen many birds die of simple stress and it's not pretty.

For more information on birds and how you can help, please read the following:
http://rainbowwildlife.com/baby-bird.html

Thank you for caring.