The shelter typically handles wild animal problems by setting a live trap in areas that seem to attract a large number of animals.

Residents may also use their own live-catch traps, or request a shelter-owned trap with a refundable deposit, to trap individual animals. The shelter will come pick up the animal when it is caught, he said.

He said most of the wild animals the shelter catches are released on city property on the fringes of town unless they are sick or injured.

The reason for releasing the animals is part of an effort to preserve the balance of nature, even in the city, he said.

“If we destroyed all of the snakes in town, for example, we would be overwhelmed with too many mice,” he explained.

Some animals, though, cannot be relocated by state law and city ordinance.

Skunks and coyotes, for example, are often carriers of rabies and the shelter must euthanize them when they are caught. The shelter kills poisonous snakes caught in Temple, but will release non-poisonous ones.

He said the shelter has even been temporary home to an emu, which is a large bird similar to an ostrich, but smaller. Hetzel managed to befriend the flightless bird during its stay at the shelter.

“I caught the emu one weekend, and by Monday I could enter the cage and the emu would literally hug me,” he said, explaining that the bird would lean his head against his chest.