Creature comforts

If, during this season of (alleged) compassion for the less fortunate, you’d really like to hone your charitable instincts, try extending them downward along the food chain. Guidance is available from the nonprofit, volunteer-run Wildlife Care Association (WCA), which invites you to its second annual Nuts and Berries party at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, December 4, in the Carmichael Park Community Facility. The plan is to raise some money, most notably through a silent auction, to support the association’s tireless provision of medical services for more than 6,000 local wildlife animals every year.

We have heard from its organizers that the event will include “tasty treats inspired by our furred and feathered friends,” and are taking it on faith that they don’t mean, you know, fried roadkill or something. Presumably the available foodstuffs will accord with the party’s title, and with its objective. Notwithstanding their disadvantages, most often the beneficiaries of the WCA’s efforts are cute, pitiable and inclined to mind their own business. (Which, granted, periodically may include rummaging through your trash. We won’t mention any names here; perhaps the photo above is incriminating enough.)

But if your heart doesn’t go out, at least a little, to orphaned opossums or young birds and squirrels knocked from their nests during tree trimmings, well, OK. Obviously you’re just a terrible, terrible person. Happy freaking holidays to you, you monster. All right, consider this: If a bobcat found you alone and injured in the woods, would it not, simply for the sake of common decency, lend assistance? No, of course not. And that’s why this is your chance to take the moral high ground. Call (916) 965-WILD (9453) for more information.