When the animal rescuers at the Cape Wildlife Centre receive a picture of a flying squirrel, they can hardly believe their eyes.
The little creature is covered all over with a sticky liquid. They immediately realise that they have to do everything they can to help the little fellow..
What is this substance?
Only when the poor flying squirrel stands in front of them do they gradually understand what has happened.
As it turns out, the little animal was living in a wall that had been insulated with spray foam, and the flying squirrel unintentionally got a good dose.
The foam has already solidified and the squirrel is visibly struggling to get the sticky stuff off his hands, as the Cape Wildlife Centre reports on Facebook:
„His two front paws were also covered in it, and we could see that in desperation he was trying to preen himself to remove [the substance].“
Unusual rescue operation
The animal rescuers do everything they can to free the squirrel.
To avoid causing it too much pain and stress, it is first put under anaesthetic. Then the animal keepers use cotton buds to free the animal step by step:
„Little by little, we used cotton buds soaked in nail polish remover to dissolve the foam and remove it from the fur and skin.“
And they continue:
„Acetone is known to remove the spray foam when it’s still wet, but we didn’t know if it would work on foam that had already hardened.“
But it does, and to the surprise of the rescuers, the procedure is quicker than expected. After just 20 minutes, the flying squirrel is freed.
Afterwards, the poor animal has a few gaps in its fur, especially on its face, but all in all, the little one survived well.
The squirrel is now recovering from its ordeal before being released into the wild.
