Subject: Re: Unbearable futility, etc.
Date: Jul 25 09:46:10 1996
From: Don Baccus - donb at Rational.COM


Dennis the menace (to non-native species) sez:

>Rehabilitators: are there any species you receive that you routinely
>euthanize because you *don't* wish to save them, presumably for some of the
>reasons expressed above? I guess making these kinds of decisions is what I
>was talking about earlier when I suggested realistic, reasonable, and
>responsible rehabilitation.

Our policy at Portland Audubon is to not rehab non-native species. I'm
not a rehabber, as I'm sure you've guessed, and take some pride in having
played a role in getting us to adopt that policy as a condition for
continuing operation of our Wildlife Care Center. Before that, a
previous director sort of informally euthanized starlings, and of
course our previous education director used to shoot rats out by
the feeders with a pellet gun.

Anyway, when folks come in with something non-native, we offer them
the option of taking it back with an info sheet so they can try
rehabbing it themselves (don't need a license for such critters),
or offer to euthanize them - emphasizing the difficulty of raising
such critters, of course. We do have a volunteer who seems to love
fox squirrels, and the public seems to be overly fond of them, so
we do shuffle them off to her. Occasionally other non-natives
are rehabed just because of the general nature of folks who come
through the center, but the vast majority are not.

Of course, if the Goshutes weren't such a long, hot drive, I'd
rehab house sparrows and starlings myself for trapping season!


- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, at http://www.xxxpdx.com/~dhogaza