Dennis Paulson:

>Who can make the correct call?

It's a tough issue. I'm no fan of rehab in general, as it does little
(IMO) other than make people feel good, other than of course the
occasional circumstance of nursing an endangered species back to
health and release - rehabbing a California condor would make some
sense, financial if nothing else.

I say this as one of the architects of a plan to save the PAS
rehab facility, though!

I won't bore you with the details or the mix of feelings that
led to the "make it work or kill it" detail of which I was a part,
but let me just say it's a complicated issue involving public
relations, pleading from agencies, the pound, the zoo, you name
it.

I'm disturbed by the notion of a species like this in essence being
put on display for no good reason. We use unreleaseable raptors, a
bat, and an amazingly chipper acorn woodpecker (trained to jesses!)
in our educational programs, and here I think a lot of good comes
about. Kids coming face-to-face with wild animals is just a good
thing, I think. If we just turn on one kid to a life of conservation
or of a career working with wildlife, well, it's worth it. And
seeing a red-tail with an amputated wing gets the message across
that people still shoot 'em.

Note, though, I've not said anything about this being better for
the individual creature, just that folks relate to them emotionally
and that it might help grow new conservationists, in a very, very
tiny way. I'm just exploitive by nature, I guess, right down to my
leather shoes.

It's true, though, that many birds seem to get along well with
people and thrive as edu-birds, so who's to say it's "wrong"?
Corny (the Acorn woody, of course!) flies free around the rehab
center on many days, and Owen the barn owl - now retired like an
old athlete with arthritic "knees" (she's 18-19 years old) - used
to take a keen interest in people, having been imprinted by some
well-meaning klutz. HawkWatch - the folks I band with - have a
redtail that has two perches in the back of a pickup (which has
a canopy over the bed) and loves to hop up on one or the other
at watch the country go by as "dad" takes her all over the West.

So, certainly such birds can have a life that has some meaning
and is certainly not at all like that of those which were kept
in old-fashioned menageries.

Yet, something about it still seems funky to me. Not quite pets,
but almost.

Not as funky as rehabbing starlings, though! (And no, PAS doesn't
waste our limited resources rehabbing starlings, though fox squirrels
are rehabbed by a volunteer on her own time - off premises).


- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>