How Can I Help Local Animals? (10 Easy Ways)

Regardless if there are animals or humans, your help is a great thing and make a difference in someone’s life. Sometimes it’s the ones without a voice who needs help the most. Helping local animals feels great, even if you don’t get a thank you afterward. You will know inside they appreciate your act of kindness.

Through this article, I will give you some advice on how you can help local animals.

You can help local animals in many different ways depending on which animal you would like to help. You can set up bird feeders and birdhouses for local birds, place insect hotels, put out corn for deer, give berries to hares, feed the ducks in the park, or treat the squirrels with some nuts.

Some ways can be easier than others, but I’m sure you will find at least one you can do. A popular favorite is to bring some nuts to the woods, look for cones that have been nibbled, and place nuts around that area to local squirrels.

Ways to Help Animals

Task	Difficulty
Set up bird feeders and birdhouses	Easy
Set up an insect hotel	Easy
Walk the neighbor’s dog	Medium
Feed corn to deers	Easy
Give berries to hares	Easy
Feed the ducks in the park	Easy
Feeding hedgehogs	Easy
Feed nuts to squirrels	Easy
Report animal abuse	Medium
Spread awareness	Medium

1. Set up bird feeders and birdhouses

An easy way you can be useful to birds is to provide them a place to stay and eat.

Everyone needs a place to eat and sleep. While building birdhouses isn’t especially hard, you can buy some beautiful birdhouses online. When looking for a birdhouse or bird feeder, look for one with a string already attached or a way to add a string to it. However, if you plan to put it out in the forest, you shouldn’t nail it to a tree but instead hang it. You hang the birdhouse or feeder on a branch instead of nailing it to the three. Another good thing to look for is a removable cleanup panel. Birds move out from their homes and leave their old stuff behind. You will need to clean the house every season.

When you look for bird feeders, there are some things to consider.

Squirrelproof

Is it OK if squirrels and other small animals can access it? If not – go for a squirrel-proof. Squirrel-proof usually means there isn’t any hole in the bottom, or there’s a funnel below the feeder that hinders climbing. Choosing a feeder with metal ports also helps to protect against squirrels.

Know your audience

Depending on the bird’s size you want to feed, you may want to choose a feeder intended for that bird’s size. Smaller birds usually like taller feeders, where larger birds prefer a more sturdy and robust feeder. When you know what birds you wish to feed, you need to know what that bird eats, so you know what to fill the feeder with.

I would go for two different – one for smaller birds and one for larger ones. That way, there won’t be any rivalry.

Easy to empty, clean and refill

Feeders are messy and should be cleaned regularly. If it isn’t easy to do it – it’s harder to motivate oneself to do it. Taller feeders with a cap you can easily screw off are the easiest ones to clean.

Go for longterm – don’t buy cheap plastics

Things break easily, and few things are sadder than something breaking you invested your time and money into. When choosing a feeder, look for sturdily built ones – made of metal. Or at least plastic with reinforced metal.

Choose a feeder after your needs as well

If you aren’t keen on visiting the feeder too often and would like to leave it out for a while, you might want to consider another route. Birdfeed spoils after it has been exposed to moisture after a while. To decrease the risk of spoilage, consider a feeder with a protective roof and fewer holes. A larger one that doesn’t require refilling often would also be a good fit. Or why not a two-tiered one like this. If you need to store birdfeed for longer, you might want to know the best way to store birdfeed, so it doesn’t spoil.

Add some suet

In colder months, birds require more calories to stay warm. Suets are excellent to provide the birds during that time. Check whether you can hang suets below the feeder, or why not provide them with a birdfeeder intended for suets? I recommend this one because it has a protective roof, is made from metal, is easy to hang, and can hold two suet cakes simultaneously.

🐦 Do you want to know how you can help birds during winter? Read more here.

2. Set up an insect hotel

Insects hotels are getting more and more popular. Insects are crucial for the entire food chain, and if the insects disappeared, other species would go extinct as well. The best way to preserve biodiversity among insects is to install insect hotels.

Insect hotels can be a home for hundreds, if not thousands of insects.

The best placement for an insect hotel is either in the shade or sunlight, preferably 1.5m from the ground (Almost 5 feet). Place it where it both gets shades and sunlight during the day. If there’s a possibility to put it where there’s no wind, they appreciate it too.

There are some things to consider when choosing an insect hotel.

Metal bars

Some birds don’t see insect hotels in the same way we do. Instead, they see them as a smorgasbord, where they can stick their beaks and get a delicious meal. You may want to consider an insect hotel where metal bars protect the holes, preventing the birds from getting through. Navari’s insect hotel is a popular one since it covers almost the entire hotel with protective metal. Except for the bee’s straws.

Diversity is key

When choosing between feeders, the keyword is diversity. If you can provide different types of homes for the insect, they will move in quicker. Some insects like ladybugs prefer to sleep in pinecones, and bees and wasps prefer bamboo straws. Others like to cozy up in shredded wood.

Standing or hanging

You need to ask yourself whether you want to hang it or place the hotel somewhere. If your goal is to grow biodiversity in your backyard and invite other animals to your garden, you might want to go with a hangable hotel. Hang it on the side of the house where it gets shade and sunlight and is covered by hard winds.

If you want to go out in nature and place the hotel, I recommend going for a standing one. Drilling in public spaces isn’t allowed, and you don’t want to drill holes in trees. Navari’s has another insect hotel with stakes attached to it, so you can easily stick it to the ground.

🐞 Did you know you can help animals without spending money and build your own insect hotel? Read more here.

3. Walk the neighbor’s dog

Do you have neighbors who have a dog? Dogs require exercise, and not everyone has the energy or the time to provide the dog with long walks or playtime. It can be frustrating for the dog to not release all their energy.

I guess you’ve seen elderly with their dogs going for a slow walk. Why not start a friendly chat with them and ask if they need help sometimes? Hopefully, you will gain two friends.

Suppose you aren’t the talkative type and more of an introvert. Why not write letters and put them in people’s mailboxes introducing yourself and say how you can help them. If you do it for free, I’m certain you will get tons of offers.

With some experience, and references you might start up a side business walking dogs.

4. Feed corn to deers

Even the majestic creatures need some help sometimes. Helping the deer population is easy as long as you know where to look. Deer values their safety very high and prefers to be in areas with many briars, tall grass, stands of saplings. If you aren’t able to find any deer, you might find their droppings. Deer droppings are shaped like bullets and are usually in a pile. You can check for a good place to place the corn when you have found some deer droppings. Place it where they can see it, but also feel safe at the same time. Feeding corn might be good during winter in order to boost their fat intake. Check out my article how you can help deer during winter.

If you know deer are visiting your neighborhood, you might want to know what to feed deer and how to invite them to your backyard?

🦌 Did you know deer eat other things than corn? Read more about what you can feed deer instead of corn.

5. Give berries to hares

The hare population has decreased drastically over the years and needs help. The increase of predators and decrease in the food supply has reduced the hare population every 10 years. You can find hares in the morning, often in open fields where they are munching on grass. If you know a place where you’ve spotted hares, you can bring some berries to them. You can spread them out in different places on that field. That way, you won’t start a rivalry between two hares who wants to eat the berries. If you want to help hares during winter you might want to read my dedicated article on the topic.

6. Feed the ducks in the park

Most of us have fed the ducks in the park. As many know ducks like to eat – and they eat almost everything. Still to this day, people are still feeding them bread. Bread shouldn’t be given to ducks since it fills up their stomachs without providing them beneficial nutrients. We have tons of articles regarding what you can feed ducks. The best thing you can bring to the park is oats. Oats have a lot of different nutrients beneficial for ducks. When you are feeding ducks food, make sure to throw the food to the ground and not into the water they swim in. Otherwise, it can cause algae growth. When algae grow it can disrupt the biodiversity below the surface.

7. Feeding hedgehogs

Did you know the hedgehog population decreases every year? Despite being around for thousands of years, the hedgehogs are in this pace soon to be extinct. Mostly because of humans. Scarce food supply because of humans use of pesticides, increase of predators like the badger and not enough places to live due to deforestation.

You can help hedgehogs by giving them food. Hedgehogs need foods the most before and after their hibernation. Before hibernation, they fill up with foods to gain an extra 500g of weight. After hibernation, they’ve lost 40% of their body weight and require food quickly. Why not provide them with some foods close to their hibernation?

You can feed hedgehogs a lot of different foods.

8. Feed nuts to squirrels

Even squirrels need our help and due to climate change, it can be harder to find food. Squirrels are easy to find food for and they are happy with some nuts. However, depending on what season it is, you may want to choose different nuts accordingly. In winter, squirrels need more fats to regain their body weight. The nuts with the most calories squirrels can eat are Macadamia nuts. In summer, when they look for foods you can provide them with berries, fruits, and vegetables. But also nuts with fewer calories, like peanuts for example.

You can find half-eaten cones or nuts to know where the squirrels are. You can also look for some squirrel droppings. Squirrel droppings look like raisins, but a little bit bigger.

You can either install a squirrel feeder and fill it with nuts, or simply throw some nuts on the ground. The latter option invites other animals to the feast and not only squirrels. Squirrels prefer to eat their food up in the tree where they are safer from predators. I suggest a squirrel feeder with a rope you can hang on a branch. That way, the branch will hide the squirrels from predators from above. Do not use a bird feeder, since squirrels easily can get stuck. Look for a feeder with big holes, like this, or a bird-proof feeder like this.

9. Report animal abuse

Regardless of what animal it is, you should always report animal abuse when you see it. If there’s someone who hit their pet, who has their dog chained up in the backyard for several hours every day or starves their pet to malnourishment.

You can start by contacting your local animal control agency. If your city doesn’t have an agency, you can contact 911 for further assistance if there’s a rush.

To provide the most help you will need to document the animal abuse:

• Date
• Time
• Details
• Footage (Cellphone camera / video)

Read more about reporting animal abuse here.

10. Spread awareness

The best thing you can do to help animals is to spread awareness. If more people are like you, there wouldn’t be any need to help animals.

You can spread awareness in many ways. Feel free to use the below points as a todo-list.

To-Do:

• Share this article to a friend or your social media feed.
• Hand out flyers to people in the streets.
• Put out posters in your area about the local animals.
• Talk with friends and family.
• Contact a local politician

Conclusion

There’s a lot of things you can do for the animal living close to you. Hopefully, you can find at least one thing you like more than the other and can specialize in. Someone can’t do everything, but everyone can do something.

To recap the list of things to do for animals.

• Set up bird feeders and birdhouses
• Set up insect hotel
• Walk the neighbor’s dog
• Feed the deers some corn
• Berries for hares
• Ducks in the park
• Feeding hedgehogs
• Nuts to squirrels
• Report animal abuse
• Spread awareness

I hope you enjoyed this list of things to help local animals and got motivated to go out and make a difference.