"Are you bringing something in?"
At the Second Chance Wildlife Center in Gaithersburg, this is the first question put to all visitors. Arrivals typically have an orphaned rabbit or an injured turtle in the back seat. At the end of a long gravel driveway off a dead-end street, the squat yellow farmhouse with wind chimes on the porch would look almost quaint were it not for the caged birds of prey in the front yard.
Chris Montuori, founder and director of the center, is giving a tour of the premises. It's been a busy year, though not so bad as it was in 2002, when the number of animals admitted in one year broke 5,000. At the height of summer, the center can receive 20 to 25 animals a day. "We can hit 50 in one day pretty easily," she says. "A clutch of 12 or 13 mallard ducklings, a litter of baby possums . . ."
Lois Napier cares for six unreleasable raptors at her Vienna home, including this 4-year-old partially blind red-tailed hawk. She conducts 50 to 60 educational programs a year with the birds.
(Mark Finkenstaedt)
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It's the off-season for wildlife rehabilitators -- and the staff couldn't be happier. "All of us look forward to when the babies stop," Montuori says. "May, June and July are absolutely Looney Tunes around here. And just as the baby birds slack off, the baby squirrels hit." Though squirrel-orphan season has peaked, several cages still contain frenetic babies. One scruffy batch, Montuori explains, is still recovering from a stubborn intestinal parasite that gave the orphans diarrhea and made their fur fall out.
Workers drift in and out to pass along news -- "Just a heads-up -- we should be getting an osprey in at 3 o'clock" -- and get instructions from Montuori. "Give the heron half a dozen smallish mice and a handful of smelt."
The center looks a little like a Container Store, except there's an animal in every box, tub and basket. A snapping turtle recovers from shell damage in the upstairs bathtub. Two invalid toads arrived at the center courtesy of a weed whacker. A sign on a door reads, "Deer Closet: Please Keep Door Closed." Turns out it's false advertising, though -- there's a heron inside. As the tour continues, some patients elicit praise ("Possums are the only animals other than rabbits that we pick up without gloves"), others censure ("The raccoon cages are empty, thank God -- raccoons stink"). A full house, certainly, but it could be worse. It's not unusual for the center to have Humane Society trucks coming in three or four times a day during the summer. "Sometimes they pass each other on the way in," Montuori says.
The Post's "Animal Watch" column chronicles the comings and goings of those trucks. Consider this item from an August column: "Downing Street NE, 1300 block, July 14. A D.C. animal control officer removed a baby opossum from a baby pool, where it had been clinging to a floating toy for several hours. The opossum was taken to a wildlife rehabilitator."
Who are these people and what is it that they do?
According to Lee Hiestand, public relations chair for the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association, wildlife rehabilitation is "the treatment of sick, injured or orphaned wild animals with the goal of reintroducing or releasing a healthy animal back into the wild." And it is only relatively recently that rehabbers have had either membership organizations to join or a generally accepted definition of what they do. The effort to formalize the discipline is only 20 to 30 years old, and the process is ongoing. "Back in the '70s, it was more of a hobby," says International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council board member Susan Heckly. "There's been a change of attitude in people doing the job," she says, "an increased level of professionalism." The organizations (the IWRC has 15,000 members, the NWRA 1,900) provide training and support for members and work together on projects aimed at standardizing the field.
Most would-be good Samaritans don't realize that it's actually against the law to handle wild animals. Indeed, wildlife rehabilitators must obtain permits or licenses -- the terminology varies from state to state -- to do so. The criteria vary as well, but most often involve serving lengthy apprenticeships, obtaining the sponsorship of an experienced rehabilitator, proving that you have appropriate facilities, and establishing a cooperative agreement with a veterinarian. Additional federal permits are required for animals in specialized categories, including migratory birds and endangered species, as well as those whose injuries prevent them from being returned to the wild. A number of factors make it difficult to determine how many licensed wildlife rehabilitators there are in the United States; some estimates put the number at 4,000 to 7,000, others at 10,000 to 12,000.
There are several misconceptions about wildlife rehabilitators. For starters, they don't do the work of zookeepers or veterinarians. Care of wild animals is not part of the standard curriculum at veterinary school, and zoo staff are more likely to know how to treat a zebra than they are an indigenous gray squirrel. Wildlife rehabilitation also has a crucial requirement that such specialists don't: The care must facilitate the animal's return to the outdoors. Most wildlife rehabilitators don't get paid. Second Chance is one of only a few wildlife centers in the nation with a salaried staff -- it has four paid employees in the winter, six in the summer, as well as college interns and a phalanx of volunteers. This level of dedication is all the more compelling when you consider the job's demands. To wit: Baby birds need to be fed every 15 minutes in daylight, infant squirrels every two hours around the clock.
"People are now more aware that there's something called a wildlife rehabilitator," says Allan Casey, speaking from his home base in Evergreen, Colo. Casey and wife Shirley run WildAgain Wildlife Rehabilitation, a nonprofit organization that provides resources, information and training to the wildlife rehabilitation community in addition to being a functioning wildlife rehabilitation center.
Their group is among the few to attempt to gather statistical data about the rehabilitation community and its regulations. The Caseys' numbers provide a clearer picture of rehabbers and their patients. Ninety percent of rehabbers are home-based, 85 percent are women, and 70 to 80 percent volunteer or are self-funded. The average caseload is 20 to 30 animals a year, and 80 percent of them arrive in the summer and early fall. Eighty percent of the animals handled are juveniles, and 70 to 75 percent are birds. The release rate for all species combined is 67 percent -- with mammals faring a bit better than birds.
According to the Caseys' statistics, Mary Young-Lutz is a typical wildlife rehabilitator. She is female, home-based and does most of her work in the summer. Young-Lutz, who treats birds and reptiles only, is affiliated with Virginia's Wildlife Rescue League, a wildlife organization based in Falls Church. "I've always done it," she says of caring for wild animals. "I was the kid who, if someone on the block found a baby bird, they brought it to me." These days, she has a room in her Leesburg basement devoted to her patients and a greenhouse outside that contains several flight cages, enclosures large enough to allow captive birds to take wing.
