interesting thread...my siblings and I did our share of rescuing baby animals as kids, and had some odd pets as well, including animals my dad raised for a while (chinchilla and quail among others)...

I resuced a young squirrel a few years ago (its foot crushed by something) and once its initial shock wore off and it sensed itself trapped in a box in my apartment with my cats waiting outside, it got MAD!
Understandably...
I agree that nature is best left to its own devices, but we cannot deny that humankind's encroachment upon natural habitats and destruction of many species of flora and fauna leaves us with some measure of responsibility to protect nature...how to balance what we should do with what we shouldn't is difficult. We have forgotten what it is is to listen to nature, to see it, to smell it, to feel it. I think regaining some measure of our closeness to the natural world helps temper the romanticism that makes us into bleeding-heart baby squirrel rescuers...but at the same time gives us reasonable amounts of sympathy and compassion for non-human creatures and plant friends..

peg