Saviors Of Wild Creatures Not Always Appreciated Some Feel Resources Would Be Better Spent On Buying Habitat

Those who nurse sick and injured wild creatures back to health had better get satisfaction from knowing they have helped Mother Nature.

They take a fair amount of heat from human critics, say participants at the annual meeting of the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association.

Some people feel the resources would be better spent on buying habitat.

Some only support help for certain species.

Some criticize rescues of oil-coated seabirds, dismissing those efforts as public-relation coups for the oil industry.

But the wildlife-rehab people are not likely to be diverted from their mission: nursing back to health sick, wounded or orphaned wild animals so they can be returned to their natural habitat.

And wildlife rehabilitation can yield valuable insights into environmental changes, says veterinarian Stuart Porter, a member of the association’s board and one of more than 500 rehabilitators from 42 states who attended the annual meeting that ended Sunday.

Animals that show up over and over with similar problems can alert people to problems with their environment, he said.

And the wildlife-rehab field has become much more scientific and professional, he said. “I try to encourage a scientific approach rather than an emotional approach.”

The effort is not always appreciated.

Some biologists say rehabilitators devote too many resources to individual animals at the expense of populations as a whole.

Porter says that while one wildlife-rehabilitation center might not save that many animals, the efforts of all the centers combined can be significant.

Injured or sick animals can also provide advance warning of problems facing a species, he said.

“If you wait for the population to go down, it’s too late,” he said.

Most of the animals brought to rehab centers have been injured not by nature, but by humans, Porter said.

They include possums run over by cars, sea turtles that have ingested plastic bags, seabirds with plastic six-pack holders round their necks, birds tied up in fishing line and animals poisoned by pesticides.

“The public demands these animals be taken care of,” Porter said.

Government agencies don’t want to do it, so it is left to a volunteer network supported by donations, he said.

Some critics say it makes no sense to try to save such problem species as Canada geese, non-native squirrels, starlings and house sparrows.

Porter said he does not discriminate by species.

“I got into it to help animals. I look at each one as an individual,” he said. “I’ll work on starlings. I’ll work on pigeons. I’ll work on them all.”

And then there are birds soiled by oil spills.

Critics contend that industry-sponsored rescue programs divert attention from the spill and mislead the public into believing there has been no permanent damage. The money would be better spent on spill prevention, they say.

Flo Tseng, a veterinarian with the International Bird Rescue Research Center in Berkeley, Calif., says money used to clean up birds would not otherwise go to habitat acquisition or spill prevention.

The law requires that the spill be cleaned up, and that includes the birds, she said. Without professional rescue efforts, members of the public with insufficient know-how might try to wash the birds.

“It’s not humane for the animals,” she said. “It needs to be done in the best way possible.”