I'd like to respond to the anti-rehabbing remarks as follows:

At 01:30 PM 5/14/96 -0700, Kelly wrote:
>
>Tweets,
>
....... Some biologists would argue that rehabbers are
>helping to dilute the gene pool with the most poorly adapted
>individuals....

This is actually not the case. 95% of the animals we get in for rehab are
there because of human intervention. That is, a human-related event was
responsible for their problem. Therefore, the "survival of the fittest"
theory doesn't apply.


....... 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...

We do extensive research before release. Especially regarding the more
highly territorial animals. They aren't simply turned loose willynilly. I
don't believe the mortality rate is any higher because the animal has been
rehabbed. As Michael said in a previous post, it's rough out there in the
real world. And it's not just the coyotes, raccoons and hawks out to get
food either. There are human hunters as well.

There are no statistics that point to survival or nonsurvival as no one has
followed the released animals, so no studies have been done. Secondarily,
because the animal is exposed to humans does NOT mean it is imprinted. This
is a common misconception. Imprinting is not familiarity, it is a situation
that renders the animal unable to recognize the courtship/communication
systems for its species. It does NOT mean an animal is tame. The biggest
impact is upon their ability to breed.

However, as not every animal is imprintable, this is not a major issue.

Nonetheless, we in rehab do everything possible to avoid inducing human
familiarity in the animals we work with. I keep a flock of domestic ducks
who take on foster care for the infants I receive. Those that cannot be
fostered, are kept isolated from human contact (yes, I do feed and clean
them, but I do not speak to them and I keep the contact to a minimum. No
one else deals with them) and human-related sounds.

In this day and age, it's very few animals indeed who will never be exposed
to human beings and most have day to day contact, whether we know it or not.
This doesn't make them tame, it doesn't make them less wild and it certainly
doesn't make them a poor genetic bet.
>
>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...

What ever gave you that idea, Kelly? I pay for everything related to these
animals. I don't get donations. I pay for all the feed, caging, heating,
medications, supplies, bedding, housing. You name it. I exhaust myself
feeding and cleaning and raising. I give up all my time and resources.
Only the centers receive donations and they are nonprofit. I don't think
the money spent to save a pileated woodpecker chick is badly spent. Do you?

Let me give you an idea of the animals I get for rehab. I work strictly
with protected birds but others in my group work with mammals:

I receive orphans whose mothers have been killed by dogs/cats running loose
or rendered helpless and unable to care for their families due to attacks of
dogs/cats running loose.

I have wild ducks brought in who are starving because some fool used them
for target practice with these ghastly new pin-type blow darts (embedded in
their eyes, or brains or breasts, or wings, rendering them unable to fly) or
decided it would be great fun to shoot the duck. Nevermind she has a brood
following her.

I get broods from mothers that somebody ran over in the parking lot as she
tried to cross because "they couldn't be bothered to stop - in too much of a
hurry". Besides, "the damn duck didn't belong in the parking lot anyway.
And I wasn't going to bring these in but my kids wanted to keep them."

"My daughter chased this duckling until it tripped and fell on the broken
garbage by the side of the pond." You should have seen the condition of
this baby duckling's face. It had a gash that hung open and ran from it's
bill to it's neck. Not enough to kill it, just mame it. Was this it's
fault? Was this a hazard that would have been caused naturally?

The guy down the road harvested his two acres of trees in the middle of
breeding season. "Gee, I didn't know a Pileated Woodpecker nested here.
Don't know where the parents are."

We get pelicans whose pouches are slashed because some jerk decided the
birds were taking too much fish and ruining their livlihood - of course,
they weren't but were left to starve to death anyway.

Our beaver rehabber gets animals that have been used as target practice by
nasty little teenage boys. There was one young beaver only a few months old
that was shot several times with a .22 by boys hiking through the woods.
They thought it would be great fun to torture the animal "it didn't say
anything when we shot it so we went on shooting". Their father brought it in
and said well, boys will be boys. Did nature set up the woods and give the
boys guns so they could do this? Why should this animal be left to die
because some dumb kids happened to come upon it?

We have rehabbers who save sea lions to whom smartass children have fed lit
firecrackers wrapped in sardines. Can you imagine? It blew holes in their
stomachs and burned their throats. They had to be euthanized.

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!)

Where is this going on? I'd appreciate information on the location, which
government entity, what species are involved. I'm very surprised at this
since Fish & Wildlife gets a great deal of their funds from hunting licenses
and the major species being hunted are ducks and geese.
>
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. ..

So it's OK to go ahead and rehab certain species but not the rest. Nothing
egotistical about that.

....... I myself had part of my
>interest in birds sparked by rearing a House Sparrow (yes, a House
>Sparrow).....

So you saved a bird that many would think should not have been saved because
it's not a protected species. Why is that so much better than trying to
save a duckling who has been stolen from it's brood by somebody who decided
they couldn't be bothered to go buy a domestic duckling from the pet store?
And then decided it wasn't much fun anyway, it was stinky and messy and,
well, "we didn't know it wouldn't stay cute". These are the animals that
become imprinted.

And Michael wrote:

> How is it all of a sudden in the last 100 or so years they al lneed to be
saved?


I guess my only answer to this would be (and this is my soapbox!(grin)) that
we, as a human species, have done so much to influence the demise of our
fellow creatures that we now find ourselves in a situation where we must
interfere. Therefore we have placed ourselves in a situation where we must
take over the management. Without rehab some of these animals wouldn't
stand a chance. A good example is the California Condor. It's demise is
directly attributable to human encroachment in it's territory, slaughter by
ranchers convinced (incorrectly) that the birds were taking young animals
(God forbid nature should interfere with making a buck), secondary poisoning
from the killing of coyotes, etc. Are human beings to anthropocentric as to
decide which species shall live and which shall die? How can we when we are
the reason they are dying to begin with?

I think perhaps people have entirely the wrong idea about rehabbing wild
animals. This is not just a "group of bored housewives wanting to mother
cute, fuzzy little animals" as one International Paper biologist suggested.
This is worldwide network of people from all walks of life, including vets
and professional wildlife biologists, managers and the like, who've
dedicated themselves to finding the best way to a) keep the wild animal
population viable, b) provide for the needs of orphans in such a manner as
to release healthy animals with every chance of success in the wild.

We educate school children and we rehab animals. Our goal is to keep wild
animals wild and release them in a physical state that they have the same
chance as those who have not been so unlucky as to come into contact with
people. Is that interferring with nature? I don't know. To my mind it is not.

I'll jump down now.

Peggi




Peggi Rodgers
Oregon Research Institute
Eugene, OR
peggir at ori.org
prodgers at efn.org
"A bird does not sing because it has an
answer, It sings because it has a song"