Wildlife rehabilitation

Wildlife rehabilitation is the practice of saving injured, sick, or orphaned wildlife by taking them out of their habitat and nursing them back to health. Rehabilitated animals are returned to the wild whenever possible. Although precise estimates of the numbers of wild animals rehabilitated are impossible to obtain, the practice seems to be expanding in nations such as the United States and Canada. The National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association (NWRA), an international group formed in the early 1980s, estimates that its members treat about 500,000 wild animals annually, with at least twice that number of telephone inquiries.

Wildlife rehabilitation differs from wildlife management in the sense that rehabilitators focus their attention on the survival of individual animals, often without regard to whether it is a member of a rare species . Wildlife managers are principally concerned with the health and well-being of wildlife populations and rarely concentrate on individuals.

Wayne Marion, formerly of the University of Florida, has summarized the advantages and disadvantages of wildlife rehabilitation. Rehabilitation facilities give the public a place to bring injured or orphaned wild animals while giving veterinary students the opportunity to treat them. They also save the lives of many animals that would otherwise die; experience gained through the handling and care of common species may be put to use when rarer animals need emergency care. But rehabilitation, according to Marion, is expensive, and common species constitute the large majority of animals saved. Rehabilitated wildlife also lose their fear of humans and risk catching diseases from other animals.

Besides routine care for injured or orphaned animals, rehabilitation groups often organize rescues of wild animals following catastrophes. When the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in 1989, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound , the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC) directed a rescue operation involving 143 boats. Over 1,600 birds representing 71 species were rescued alive. Survival rates varied by species, but overall roughly half of the birds were eventually returned to the wild. Rehabilitators also recovered 334 live sea otters from areas affected by the spill, cleaned and treated them, and returned 188 to the wild.

Wildlife rehabilitation should become more integrated with conventional wildlife management in the future, especially when catastrophes threaten endangered species . Meanwhile, an important role of rehabilitators is in education. Rehabilitated animals who have lost all fear of humans or who are permanently injured cannot be returned to the wild. Such individuals can be used to teach school children and civic groups about the plight of wildlife by bringing rare animals, such as the bald eagle or peregrine falcon to display at talks.

See also Game animal; Nongame wildlife; Nongovernmental organizations

[James H. Shaw ]

RESOURCES

PERIODICALS

Maki, A. W. "The Exxon Valdez Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Program." North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference Transactions 55 (1990): 193–201.

Marion, W. R. "Wildlife Rehabilitation: Its Role in Future Resource Management." North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference Transactions 54 (1989): 476–82.