Wildlife Rehabilitation Lecture 2

1
Wildlife RehabilitationLecture 2

• 2. Introduction to practical and ethical issues
  in Wildlife Rehabilitation

2
Contents

• What is rehabilitation
• What do wildlife rehabilitators want to achieve?
• How do they know when wildlife rehabilitation is
  successful?
• What can rehabilitators do to make the process as
  successful as possible?
• Should every animal that is rescued be released?
• What else can go wrong?

3
What is rehabilitation?

• Give an example of the use of the word
  rehabilitation or rehab
• Abusers of drugs and alcohol go into rehab
  clinics to recover and learn how to cope when
  they return back to the outside world.

www.worldfun.nl/pic/pic5.htm
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What do wildlife rehabilitators want to achieve?

• Recovery from illness/ injury
• Release back into the wild
• Survival in the wild for how long?
• Interaction with own species?
• Contribution to the gene pool?

5
How do we know when wildlife rehabilitation is
successful?

• Some would argue that we dont! Unless
• Wild animals can often be marked or tagged so
  that they can be studied after they have been
  released (post-release monitoring).
• This is expensive and time consuming - wildlife
  charities often cannot afford it on a regular
  basis.

Photo courtesy of Simon Allen (Gower Bird
Hospital)
6
What can rehabilitators do to make the process as
successful as possible?

• Return casualties to full health and fitness
• Release into the appropriate environment e.g.
• Habitat type
• Predation
• Competition
• Season and weather
• Man-made hazards

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Should every animal that is rescued be released?

• What if the ideal situation cannot be achieved?
  
• What are the other options?
• Permanent captivity
• Euthanasia
• Which option is best for animal welfare?
• Which option is best for resource management (and
  therefore other casualties) for a charity?

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What else can go wrong?

• The released animal may
• carry an infectious disease
• be more vulnerable to diseases present in a new
  area
• be genetically different and possibly less well
  adapted to a new environment
• displace a resident animal of the same species

• The rehabilitator may
• fail to provide the animal with the necessary
  physical fitness/ learned skills to survive
• release the animal into an inhospitable release
  site
• release a non-native species which may damage the
  ecosystem

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WHY do we rehabilitate wildlife casualties?

• Compassion for animal suffering
• Compensate for man-made hazards causing wildlife
  casualties
• Developments in veterinary medicine
• Species conservation (may be useful for
  endangered populations)
• Research into understanding
• the biology and ecology of
• rehabilitated species

Photo courtesy of Simon Allen (Gower Bird
Hospital)
10
Summary

• The aims of wildlife rehabilitation may include
  animal welfare and species conservation
• Success should really by measured by what happens
  to the casualty after it has been released
• Rehabilitators also have to deal with animals
  that cannot be released
• After all the nursing and rehabilitation,
  releasing animals into the wild is a complicated
  process!