Information about Wildlife Rehabilitation

Wildlife rehabilitation is the process of removing from the wild and caring for: injured, orphaned, or sick wild animals. It is the goal of a wildlife rehabilitator, to provide for the food, housing, and medical care of these animals, returning them to the wild after treatment.

Process

Rehabilitation begins when an animal is found and reported to a wildlife rehabilitator. The rehabilitator will examine the animal to determine the extent of the injury and the probability of successful rehabilitation. If it appears that the animal can make a sufficient recovery to be able to return to the wild, the animal will be fed, nurtured, reconditioned, medicated, operated on, and otherwise treated as necessary.

Animals that cannot be rehabilitated are usually euthanized humanely, though occasionally, animals are placed at facilities appropriately licensed for educational exhibit. A non-releasable animal may sometimes be kept by the rehabilitator (under separate permit) as a foster parent for orphaned or injured young wildlife.

Criticisms

Critics advocate a naturalistic viewpoint that animals requiring rehabilitation should be left to nature rather than rescued, so as to avoid interfering with the cycle of life. Supporters of the practice generally point to the large number of rehabilitation cases resulting from human intervention in the first place (e.g. animals hit by cars) and argue that rehabilitation is a way of restoring the balance.

Other Information

In many countries, including the United States and Australia, wildlife rehabilitation requires a permit, and in most areas it is against the law to attempt to rehabilitate a wild animal on one's own. Rehabilitation permits requirements and procedures vary from state to state. However if one wishes to rehabilitate migratory birds, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act requires that a permit must be obtained from both state and federal wildlife agencies (this includes ALL birds with the only exceptions being pigeons, European starlings, and house sparrows.)

The field of wildlife rehabilitation is generally composed of individuals who operate from their homes, usually as volunteers or as part of volunteer organizations. Nevertheless, with the increased availability of training and continuing education being added as a condition of permit renewal, many of these wildlife rehabilitators are able to provide very sophisticated care to injured and orphaned wildlife. Most home-based wildlife rehabilitators are required to have a relationship with a licensed veterinarian for consulations and assistance on problems that exceed what can appropriately be handled by a lay person.

Around the world, there are an increasing number of professionally staffed wildlife hosptials which are taking the field of wildlife rehabilitation to a level that puts it on par with companion animal medicine...and even human medicine in some cases. The Wildlife Center of Virginia (<www.wildlifecenter.org>), for example, has become an accredited teaching hospital that has provided training to students from almost every veterinary school in the United States and Canada, as well as 25 other countries. This center also offers graduate veterinarians a one-year postdoctoral internship in clinical wildlife medicine and a three-year postdoctoral residency in preventive medicine (epidemiology).

External links

• National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association
• International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council
• University of Minnesota's Wildlife Rehabilitation Information Directory
• USFWS Migratory Bird Permits
• Wildlife Center of Virginia

• Free Again Wildlife Rehabilitation (Illinois)
• Directory of Australian Wildlife Rehabilitation Associations