Tweets,

The rehab issue is one I've usually kept silent on, simply because I
don't think rehabbers (rehabers?) make a dent in any population for
better or for worse. Some biologists would argue that rehabbers are
helping to dilute the gene pool with the most poorly adapted
individuals but I have a hard time believing that rehabbers ever rehab
more than the minutest fraction of most populations. The animals that
are successfully rehabbed probably have a high mortality rate after
release anyway, since most species have populations limited by carrying
capacity and the released individual is at a disadvantage on someone
else territory.

Mostly, it seems like a poor use of conservation resources when a
donation to a group working to save habitat would probably have a much
bigger impact. (And it does seem a little weird that rehabbers spend
so much time trying to save ducklings and goslings when government
agencies are spraying geese eggs with oil to try to prevent their
hatching!)

All that said, there is a good side to rehabbing. Many rehabbers learn
on common birds and, when the rare Whooping Crane does show up, they
hopefully will have made their mistakes on common birds. One can't
discount, too, that rearing a baby bird is an education that opens many
people's eyes to the world around them. I myself had part of my
interest in birds sparked by rearing a House Sparrow (yes, a House
Sparrow) from a featherless eating machine to a handsome male adult.
(He was always a pet, however; a true 'House' Sparrow that was never
released.)

Kelly Cassidy