I found a wild animal in Memphis. Who do I actually call?
The short answer
For an injured or orphaned wild animal in Memphis or West Tennessee, call a wildlife rehabilitator. Us: 901-340-6534. TWRA keeps the full list of licensed rehabilitators by county.
Animal control is not the number for this, and it is worth understanding why before you spend twenty minutes on hold. Memphis Animal Services states that it is only legally authorised to provide humane euthanasia for sick or injured wildlife, and that all other wildlife concerns go to TWRA or a private company.
If a wild animal has bitten or scratched you, that is a different call. Go to the bottom of this page.
Why nobody seems to be responsible
People arrive at this frustrated, and fairly so. You find a hurt animal, you call the city, they refer you to the county, the county refers you to the state, the state gives you a list of private phone numbers. It reads like everyone is dodging.
They are not, mostly. Wildlife in Tennessee is a state matter, and the state agency that owns it does not run a rescue service. City and county animal control exist for domestic animals — licensing, vaccination, loose dogs, cruelty and neglect. Wild animals fall outside that remit almost everywhere in the country, and Shelby County says so in writing.
Which leaves rehabilitators, who are mostly volunteers working out of their own homes on their own money. That is the actual structure. It is worth knowing before you need it.
Memphis Animal Services
MAS handles animal control inside the City of Memphis only. Their field calls are dispatched through the police non-emergency line, 901-545-COPS, rather than through the shelter itself. The shelter's main number is 901-636-1416.
On wildlife, their published position is narrow and specific: they are only legally authorised to provide humane euthanasia for sick or injured wildlife, and everything else should go to TWRA or a private wildlife management company.
That is worth reading twice. It means calling animal control about an injured raccoon is not a route to treatment. If you want the animal treated, a rehabilitator is the call.
Outside the city limits
Memphis is not Shelby County, and the suburbs run their own animal services. MAS publishes this referral list.
Shelby County, excluding Bartlett, Germantown and Collierville: Shelby County Rabies Control, 901-222-9715.
Bartlett: Bartlett Animal Control, 901-385-6484.
Germantown: Germantown Animal Shelter, 901-757-7358.
Collierville: Collierville Animal Services, 901-457-2670.
For Bartlett after hours, the city's emergency dispatch line is 901-385-5555.
The county's Rabies Control programme, which covers Arlington, Lakeland, Millington and unincorporated Shelby County, states plainly that it does not service requests involving wildlife, and names snakes, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, rats and birds specifically.
TWRA
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency owns wildlife policy in this state. What it does not do is come to your house.
TWRA's own guidance says wildlife officers typically do not trap or remove nuisance wildlife, and that because of the sheer volume of human-animal interactions the agency cannot assist landowners with capturing them. For orphans, TWRA's advice is to leave the animal where it is unless it is genuinely in trouble, and then to contact a rehabilitator.
The West Tennessee regional office is in Jackson at 731-423-5725, or toll-free 800-372-3928. General information is 615-781-6500.
TWRA also maintains the official list of licensed rehabilitators, sorted by county. If we cannot take your animal — and there are days when nobody can — that list is where to go next.
Wildlife rehabilitators, and what we can and cannot do
We are the people who actually treat injured and orphaned native wildlife. We are also a small volunteer operation, and there are limits worth knowing before you call.
We cannot come and get the animal. No Tennessee rehabilitator can. TWRA states this plainly on its own directory page: rehabilitators do not pick animals up, and you will need to arrange transport. If your animal needs to come in, you will be bringing it.
We cannot take deer. Fawn rehabilitation is prohibited statewide — TWRA does not allow deer to be moved anywhere in Tennessee because of chronic wasting disease, now detected in 23 counties. If you have found a fawn, it must go back where you found it.
Raptors — hawks, owls, eagles — need a separate federal permit. In Shelby County TWRA lists the Mid-South Raptor Center at 901-685-8827, the Memphis Zoo at 901-725-3419, and Terry Barnett DVM in Millington at 901-872-0157.
Bats are a gap. There is currently no bat rehabilitator listed anywhere in West Tennessee. Call us anyway and we will help you think it through, but we want you to know that going in.
Armadillos cannot be rehabilitated, relocated or released in Tennessee at all. They are classified as injurious to the environment.
What we can take is most of what people actually find: squirrels, opossums, rabbits, raccoons, songbirds, and the ordinary run of small native mammals and birds that get hit by cars, caught by cats, and blown out of trees.
If you have been bitten or scratched
This is the one situation on this page where you should stop reading and act.
Wash the wound with soap and running water for a full fifteen minutes. That is CDC's number, and it is worth timing rather than estimating — flushing the wound is the single most effective thing anyone can do before reaching a doctor. Then cover it and get medical attention. A tetanus booster is advised if your last one was more than five years ago. Report the bite to the Shelby County Health Department — their main number is 901-222-9000 — because animal bites are reportable and the follow-up is theirs to coordinate.
For raccoons, skunks and foxes, national guidance is to treat the animal as potentially rabid and begin preventive treatment in consultation with public health rather than waiting. Squirrels, rabbits, rats and mice are a different matter and are generally not considered a rabies risk.
Do not release an animal that has bitten someone, and do not try to send it for testing yourself. Members of the public cannot submit specimens to the state laboratory; it has to go through animal control, the health department or a veterinarian. The testing itself is free, provided the health department accepts the case — it decides what gets tested.
Bats are their own case
If a bat is found in a room with someone who was asleep, or with a young child or anyone who could not reliably say whether they were touched, do not let it out of the house. A bite from a bat can be too small to notice.
Contain it if you can do so safely, do not handle it barehanded, and call the health department. If the bat is available it can be tested; if it has already gone, the conversation about preventive treatment happens without it.
Where no person had contact with the bat, testing is usually unnecessary. Most bats are not rabid — the state rabies manual puts it at no more than one percent of bats in the wild — but the reason this one gets treated carefully is that you cannot tell by looking.
A note on the numbers on this page
We checked every one of these against the agency's own published material rather than a directory site, because these numbers move and stale contact lists do real harm. Even so, one county health department document we found was clearly years out of date, listing an old address and a phone number with no area code.
If something here has gone stale, tell us and we will fix it. And if you are ever stuck between agencies with an animal in a box, call us. Even when it is not ours to take, we can usually tell you whose it is.
901-340-6534.