Welcome to episode seventy of Get Out Alive, a biweekly podcast about in law
tacks, how to avoid them, and why they happen. I'm your host,
Ashley, and before we get into today's episode, there are two new
expert survivalist patrons. I need to shout out so thank you so much to
Tyler, who happens to be our one hundredth patron, which is crazy and
super exciting. Thank you and Christy, thank you both so much for joining
us. And you can join us too at patreon dot com. Slash get
a live podcast where you can get bonus episodes, video recordings of some episodes
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and you can also follow us there for free and just see new posts
every other week that are exclusive to Patreon, or you get support us for
free by leaving a five star review wherever you are listening. Today's episode is
a special one because we were joined by Jess, who happens to have made
her career in wildlfe rehabilitation, which I know is an animal attacks but I
swear we will still talk about that and the dangers of rehabbing wild animals.
But today's episode is focused a lot on ways in which wildlife are hurt by
humans and how we can help rather than harm, which is kind of the
theme of the last few episodes and the next few episodes to come. This
is a long one, so without further ado, here is my interview with
jess So my name is Jessica Anderson and my pronouns are she, her,
and I work at the Blue Ridge Wildlife Center. I'm the rehab program manager
there. Basically, how I got there is probably very similar to how anybody
else gets into the animal care field, which is I was. I went
to college, I was looking for internships. I found some animal care internships,
which one was my first. One was a sea lion and elephant seal
or just seal rehabilitation internship in California at the Marine Mammal Care Center, and
I was like, I don't know what rehab is, Let's give it a
shot. And then I fell in love with it and just kind of trickled
from that internship to an apprenticeship in Texas, and then I spent a year
in Texas and got a position at my current facility as a rehab associate back
in like twenty fifteen and I've been there ever since and just kind of naturally
migrated into a management position, which is nice a little different, but I
still do most of what I was doing before as well. So yeah,
that is super cool that you like, your first, one of your first
internships is doing rehab and then you're like, I'll do this forever and it
actually worked out. That's shocking. All I knew is that I wanted to
work with animals, but I didn't want to be a veterinarian because to me,
that was a lot of pressure, Like these are people's family menbers essentially,
but animals, and I was like, I don't know that I could
handle life or death situations in that capacity. And I was literally just googling
animal care internships and just like looking at anything like zoos sanctuary work. I
had no idea rehab was a thing, and I saw some of them and
was like, oh, I'll just throw some applications out here, and landed
that one and was like, oh my god, you get to help these
animals and then let them go amazing, and then you don't have them anymore,
and then you just keep to like it's just a constant cycle, Like,
yeah, that's so fresh. And new and like something different every day.
So yeah, it was nice. It was exactly what I was looking
for without knowing is what I was looking for. So also, elephant seals
and seals like that is so that's so cool. I've never heard of anybody
else having an internship rehabbing seals. That's awesome. So it was mostly California
sea lions and we had a few elephants seals there. And it's really funny
because, like you see California sea lions, they are literally the dogs of
the seat. Like, yeah, you go in to clean around them and
obviously you're not like interacting with them, but they will run up and grab
your hose drag it into the pool and now you have to like tug the
hose away from these sea lions that think it's a game. Yeah, and
you're just like this is like you're very cute. But at the same time,
I have like six other enclosures that I have to clean right now,
like like, good for you, but please make my job easier. So
you kind of answered this a little bit, but did you always want to
work with wildlife and did you know that career in what like career and wildlife
rehab. What's an option before you got your internship, So I yeah,
number one, I had no idea what rehab was before my internship. That
was just literally luck at the draw, like just Google Animal care and like
going through and just applying to everything I knew. I always wanted to work
with animals of some sort. I grew up in like right next to a
state park in Maryland, and like I grew up riding horses and like going
on trail rides, and we had twelve acres in the woods, so we
would find animals all the time. And to be fair, like as a
kid, we definitely did stuff with wildlife we shouldn't have done, Like tried
to rescue two baby squirrels after our neighbor's outdoor cat brought it in, right,
and like now that I know what I know, and like looking back,
I'm like, oh, yeah, one hundred percent, we murdered those
squirrels, but like I started it, but like I know about it now
and like so I can kind of relate to people who find things that are
like I want to take care of it, and I can be like I
get it, and I one hundred percent understand where you're coming from. But
at the same time, like you do not want to be responsible and then
find out later that you did all these things wrong, and like, yeah,
cause that so. Yeah, I've always been like more of an animal
person than a people person. I think that's what pushed me in that direction.
But until I really got into it, I had no idea exactly what
capacity I wanted to work with animals. So yeah, totally. So that
actually leads perfectly into a question that we had from a patron. Hannah Gorton
said, what is the most common public misconception or misinformation about wildlife that causes
people to intervene in situations where they shouldn't Aka the thing that makes you go,
Hugh, if you hadn't done this, it would be a rehab case.
And she specifically said asking because I did this as a kid with birds,
because people always said, like, oh, if you touch a bird,
you can't put it back in the nest. I literally have that in
my notes of like what are misconceptions? And the very first one is if
you touch a wild animal, mom will come back for it. Yeah,
and like weirdly enough, birds specifically, which like some birds do have a
good sense of smell, or like some sense of smell, but most birds
aren't relying on that, so like it kind of just became an old wives
tale to basically prevent kids from like picking up animal or birds at least and
like bringing them home. I think that's where it started. But then it
I find that, like in any aspect where people are trying to like help
wildlife by making something up, it's the whole like possums don't get rabies,
Like, yeah, it was started as a way to try and protect possums
or try and protect wildlife, and then it comes full circle to backfire,
where then now people are like, oh, yeah, possums make great pets,
and like they're dangerous at all and if they bite you, you shouldn't
be worried about it. And it's like we had we've had like rabid possums
in my state, and there are obvious cases that you can just literally look
up on Google that show you positive of ravse posmes. And so it's just
funny to me that like these things start and they're like, oh, we're
gonna like this will help save animals, and then yeah, full circle comes
around and now people are just like abusing that in the same thing of like,
oh, I have this bird and I touched it, so like mom
won't come back for it, and it's like, no, she doesn't care.
And then also like if you critically think about it for a minute,
you're like, the birds are literally nesting in your dryer vent or like under
your porch, so they already smell like people. Why would you like the
smell of your hand be any different. So like there's some of that,
and obviously for some things that does apply. I don't work with bison,
so I can't argue against any of that. But then there's obviously like the
stories that come out of Yellowstone right when people are being assholes and getting too
close to calves and touching calves and then the parents reject them. So like
I'm not going to talk about those animals because I don't have experience with them,
but specifically like birds, bunnies, bunnies are a bad one. Like
bunnies and fawns when people just find them by themselves and they're like there's no
mom around, so like they're orphaned, and I'm like, no, you
leave them alone. Like I had a woman at my old job call me
and say I found a fawn and I walked my entire property and I didn't
find a single adult deer, so she's orphaned. And I said, ma'am,
you know, deer are prese species, so obviously they hear you and
see you before you see them, So it doesn't really mean anything if you
haven't seen any deer, because that's just them like doing what they do best.
And she absolutely would refuse to leave that deer and even threaten to like
put it down if we wouldn't take it. This was a Texas people are
crazy. Granted, peller crazy everywhere, but yeah, like like dedicated and
committed to helping in but to a fault, like that's where things so basically
fonds and buddies. Like when people find animals that don't have parents around them,
that doesn't mean that they're orphaned. There's lots of ways to tell if
they're orphaned. And I just want to also highlight that if anybody sees something
that says like if a fawn's ears are curled, it's alone in the world.
That's also a myth. Somebody made that up that and I don't know
again, don't know why or or where it started, but one has no
basis in like science, or you know anything factual, Like we've gotten deer
like fawns in that had their legs chopped up in a oh my god,
a bush hog. And those fawns perfectly straight ears, no curling, very
obviously dehydrated and in shock and like just not great. But like if you
were just looking at the ears, you'd have no idea, right, So
that's really obnoxious. So fawns, bunnies find them by themselves. Generally speaking,
they're fine, unless they actually have injuries or wounds or flies all over
them, or they can't physically stand up or are lying on their sides.
Those are all kind of like the quick You glance at them and you're like,
okay, that's not a healthy animal. The other one, like what's
really obnoxious? People like to find baby turtles and they're like, oh my
god, they're so vulnerable. I'm going to keep them for a year or
multiple years to head start them. And I don't know what those laws are
in other states, but in our state, if somebody takes in a reptile,
a wild reptile and keeps it for longer than thirty days, regardless of
what kind of reptile it is or what the health of that animal is after
thirty days, it is considered non releasable. Oh we get yeah, we
get a lot of calls in the spring because people find babies that hatch late
fall and they keep them all winter, and now they call us to be
like when's the best time to release them? And now we have to be
like never, because you can't do that. And the reason for that is,
like it's assumed if you don't have a permit, you don't know how
to properly care for them. So number one, they could have like metabolic
issues or nutritional problems, or you aren't properly maintaining hygiene around them. So
if you have like other reptiles, you could then be introducing diseases to that
turtle or frog or snake or whatever from other sources, and you releasing them
then endangers that entire local population. So there's a lot of reasoning behind it,
and people get really mad, but I'm like, it's it's there for
a reason. Yeah, And then I think the last one, Oh,
I don't know if it's really a misconception, but whenever people are like this
animal came to me because they knew I would help it, like or like
it's just a fledgling bird that has like that has no concept of predators yet,
and you're just there, like the disneyfication of wildlife again and full circle,
like maybe it started to help prove like have people care about wildlife,
but now it's it's gone beyond the line, and now everybody thinks that they're
snow white and that animals love them and all this anthropomorphization and then it goes
bad from there. So and I'm like, or the animals like starving and
desperate and literally is just going towards whatever moves who knows? Like, yeah,
which one comes up a lot when we talk about animals that have mange,
for example, which is I mean it's a super specific example, but
like I used to feel calls from people who are like, oh, well,
can I bring it into somewhere to get treated or whatever, and like
I think it has rabies because it's coming up to me. I'm like,
or it's it has mange and it can't hunt anymore and it's dying and that's
why it's approaching you, Like it's not necessarily like trying to get help.
It's just about to keel over. Yeah. So yeah, like they're willing
to risk their lives because this is the last the only other option that they
have, right like, like, oh, something's moving, maybe I'll find
food around it, or they'll throw food out, or I can eat it.
I don't know who knows. Yeah, So before I do have another
question linked to a possums because we were talking about a possums for a bit.
But I do want to ask quickly about mange because I know a lot
of people. There's like this online thing where you can write in somewhere and
get mange medication and it tells you leave it out, and so I just
want to say, like, right now, if you find an animal with
mange, what should you do about it? If anything? So I know
exactly the website that you're talking about. And number one, I don't know
how they're like legally up because the medication that they suggest and that they send
to you is illegal to use off label. So it's only intended for the
use for cows or pigs or you know, livestock, and so to use
any to use any medica for wildlife. There's no specific medications for wildlife like
that's designated for them. It's considered used off label. And in order to
use any medications off label, it has to be specifically prescribed by a veterinarian.
The other problem with mange is that the only way that you can for
sure one hundred percent diagnose an animal with mange is by getting a skin scrape,
which obviously this website is not doing. They're just saying, send us
some pictures and we'll like evaluate it and then we'll send you some medication that
you can illegally put out. And before my little tangent about that is we
have gotten foxes, because normally it's foxes or like coyotes that people are concerned.
We have gotten foxes that have received so much of that medication because people
don't know how to dose it properly, that they are poisoned by it and
then end up getting sick and either dying. I think we had one that
we were able to flush it out of his system in time because he was
literally like tremoring, having neurologic symptoms. And the person who did it was
not convinced that it was they're doing. They were like, oh, it's
a hot day. I think it was heat exhaustion, and we were like,
you just told us you put this entire tube for a whole cow.
Put an adult cow in multiple hot dogs. And what do foxes love to
do? They love to take as much food as possible, stick it all
in their mouth, run away, and eat all of it by themselves.
That's just what foxes do. So if you're like, oh, I've got
five foxes, I'm going to put five doses out, most likely you're going
to have one fox getting off five doses and then that poisons them. So
I have a lot of beef with those kinds of because But anyway, long,
long story short, if you have an animal that you suspect has nane
number one, I would call any local rehabilitator in your area because again they're
going to have to trap it and bring it into care because they have to
get a medication prescribed by a veterinarian, and a veterinarian is not going to
prescribe it without confirming that it's mange first, and you have to get a
skin scrape, and you can't do that if you don't have the animal in
hand. The other thing is that normally animals that are really bad have really
bad mange right there, super skinny skin and bones. Even if you were
to somehow able to put medications out for that box. Treating the mange does
not treat the infections, does not treat their emaciation, does not treat their
dehydration. And normally these animals are like by the time you're able to trap
them, they're normally pretty bad off. They need medical support, they need
fluids, they need slow refeeding to prevent refeeding syndrome. So there's a lot
of complicated things that go into treating mange, but just putting medication out is
one illegal and to causes more problems. It's also that medication it's toxic to
certain breeds of dogs. So if you have like dogs in the area,
or you have like dogs yourself in the yard, or your neighbors have dogs
and you just have like an open shared area that those dogs can access,
you could be poisoning those dogs. Again, if anything else eats it and
it's smaller than a fox, and maybe you did dose it, even if
you did dose it correctly, if it's smaller than a fox, then that
could still have problems for it. So and then most people think like,
oh, I put a hot dog out, I saw a fox come and
get it, and then the next fox I saw a couple weeks later was
like perfect and healthy and beautiful, and they assume that that's that fox,
and I'm like, well, most likely that fox just went off and died
and then a new fox came in in the area, because again, how
are you telling who's who at that point? So yeah, I mange is
complicated. The other thing is like, if they're otherwise healthy and it's like
summer spring, it's warm, there's not really any need each to intervene unless
they do look like on Death's Tour, because in the summertime they can get
over it. They just go through, you know, the mange their body
as long as it's healthy and they can eat enough, they will naturally get
through it if they're well enough, And it's not a big deal if it's
warm out because they don't need as much fur to keep warm. During the
winter time, it is kind of a bigger deal, right, because they're
dealing with harsher temperatures and that kind of gets on top of everything else.
But normally, like our recommendation, just because it is so complicated to like
put a trap out, make sure you trap the right box, make sure
and number one We've had animals come in that people trapped and like brought to
us and they didn't have mange. They just had a heavier flea load than
normal and they were missing a little bit of fur at the base of their
tails. Like, just because they're missing a little fur does not mean mange.
And we've had like animals come in with light or ring, like there's
so many other things that could cause for loss that the medicine that people recommend
giving for mange will not fix. Yeah, that's my mange rant. If
you couldn't tell I doot. Yeah. Yeah. And so I have a
cousin that does wildlife rehab as well, and I know from her stuff that'll
like almost all of the cases she has of animals, it's usually foxes or
coyotes. Like you said, with mange, it's because they have ingested rat
poison and the mange is just like a thing that also happened to happen to
them. So it's a good point that, like, well, first of
all, don't use rat poison. Oh my god, I could talk about
that all day long. Don't ever use rat poison because it bucks up so
many things. But yeah, like it's usually something it's usually not just one
thing happening to the sport animal, so don't try to medicate it yourself.
Oh yeah, so before I lose the apossome tangent. So when I post
on Patreon, people could ask you questions, I link to your Twitter,
and when our patrons breeze so that they looked at your Twitter and your pin
tweet is about a possum vaginas, and they were like, please say more,
so, please tell us all about a possum vagina. Okay, well,
obviously you're always welcome. Anybody listening can go to my Twitter. It's
my pin tweet and I go into a deeper dive into this. But basically,
possums or marsupials in general, they're not placental mammals, so their gestation
period is very short versus most regular placental mammals. So for example, a
possum is generally only like quote unquote pregnant for ten to twelve days, which
is insane to me, Like, yeah, that's cool. That's a shorter
time than some people leave like leftovers in their refrigerator, right, and that's
like an entire grown creature that now has to like do things. So possums
also have two vaginas, And I will always credit and Hillborn for coining the
term space portal vagina, because like, I think that's it's the best way
to kind of describe it. So you have two vaginas, right, and
you'd think one of those two vaginas would be a great exit vagina, but
the possum said, actually, no, we're not going to do that.
And basically the connective tissue between the double vaginas sort of disintegrates, and instead
of the babies just like crawling out through one of the vaginas, this third
vagina kind of just opens up between them, and the babies swim out with
deciduous claus by the way, like they have thirteen days, and they have
claws that they use to swim out of the vagina, up the fur into
the pouch, and then they latch onto the nipple, right, they latch
on their mouths then reseal shot over the nipple to basic like seal them on
so they don't fall off because right mom is walking and they're like on her
belly and hanging down, so they have to have a way of like hanging
on and then the claws fall off, so they go through like ten to
twelve days of going through the whole process of developing claws just for them to
fall off after they hook onto the nibble, and then they like continue developing
in the pouch, which is essentially just like an external room. And it's
like, why, like what made this evolve versus like placential mammals who all
of that development happens internally. But part of it I think is probably because
like if something happens resource wise, like all of a sudden there's a drought,
there's not enough food, then they can literally just pluck them out of
their pouch and be like try, we'll try again next time whatever, Like
I don't have time for this, and I'm like a feminist icon honestly,
marsuppils, oh my god, or its like you know what, maybe I
only want half of these babies. Let me just pluck out like five and
then we'll keep the rest. That's crazy. They do. So they have
thirteen nipples, so they can have up to thirteen babies, and so right,
it's very rare for us to get an injured adult mom possaman with all
thirteen. She normally only has like eight or six because either they don't attach.
And she also, by the way, she's giving birth to like twenty
or more babies, so it's really a rat race of who gets to the
nipples first. And that's assuming they all do, because like she's probably walking
around or she's like up and you know, she's cleaning her her pouch and
basically like licking a pathway to the pouch for these tiny little like bumblebee sized
fetuses to like swim out to it. It's like I could talk about possum
physiology forever because it's literally insane when you look at it. They also create
thing is like they haven't Virginia possums at least have not changed at like developmentally
basically since they got to this like body design that they're in right now,
and that was millions of years ago. They've said, if it ain't broke,
don't fix it. Yeah, and I'm like, okay, like good
for you. I guess it's like thirteen babies twice a yearish anymore. Just
let them go, yeah, and then they only live for like two to
three years if they're lucky, and they're like whatever, like I'm not here
for a long time. I'm here for a good time. But yeah,
that's the epitome of lifast die young. Like, oh god, possums are
so they're crazy, but they're so good at it that I can't really be
mad. You can't fall to them. Yeah, oh man, crack the
cod So speaking of like, we've talked about a lot of different species here,
So just to clarify, does the place that you work at taken like
any wild animal or do you guys specialized and stuff? So, and I
think this will lead into another question. We take all native wildlife to our
state, and technically we will take non native wildlife, but we are very
honest and transparent. We do not rehabilitate and release anything that isn't native.
And that's not only like our policy even if it wasn't a state law,
but it is also a state law in our rehabilitation conditions that no one in
the state can do that. Cool. Yeah, because someone did ask that,
which I hadn't even considered that that was a thing, but let me
find it. Yeah, so patron Ali Smith and then ask like, how
do you guys handle invasive animals? So do you guys just say we don't
accept them or you ship them somewhere else? So so and this is for
the problem with rehab is that there's not really one governing like age and see
your body that tells you what the guidelines are. So every state regulates their
rehabilitators individually, with the exception being federal regulations. So like, obviously the
federal government regulates birds migratory birds that are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act,
and but for states, they can kind of say whatever they want.
So like, for example, for my state, they say that we cannot
rehabilitate and release or keep captive any non native or invasive species. So that
also includes coyotes in our states. Oh wow, So yeah, Virginia considers
coyotes an invasive species or nuisance species, even though because they didn't originate in
the East Coast. But yeah, I personally don't agree because I'm like,
well, they're naturally migratory, so like they were going to expand here with
the lack of wolves, and probably even with wolves maybe, but that's another
story anyway. Yeah, so if somebody calls us, right and they say,
hey, I have a nest of starlings, of European starlings, which
are considered invasive and the parents aren't here, or they were in my dryer
van I can't put them back in the dryer vent or one fell out.
Whatever. If we always recommend generally, oh my god, I have cat
hair in my mouth, story of my life. We recommend it generally.
Right, If somebody just calls and says, I have a bird and it's
out of the nest, what do I do with it? We go through
rensting protocols with them before we even ask, generally what kind of bird it
is. With some exceptions, right, Chimney swifts are a little different because
they nest vertically and there's very specific things and ways to renest them. But
for the most part, if it's April and somebody calls us and they're like,
i' have a baby bird, what should I do? We go through
the hole. Is it injured? Is it cold? What's it doing?
Is it feathered? Is it naked? Okay, it's naked. It needs
to go back either into its original nest where if the whole ness came down,
we can renest it now. If it gets to the point where we
nesting is not possible, or the animal's injured, or it was in a
cat's mouth, anything like that, where it cannot go back with its parents.
Then we get into the point where we say, okay, that animal
needs care. Generally, we're also not at that point asking what kind of
bird do you have, because most of the time people don't know anyway,
right. They just see a bird and they're like, oh, it's little
and brown. I think it's a sparrow, or it's a finch, or
they see like the pins coming in and they're like, it's kind of blue
looking. I think it's a bluebird. And for us, it doesn't really
matter because once it gets here, we'll identify it, and if it's non
native, we do inform them, like we'll let them know, and we
try to let them know too before they hand. If it sounds something sus
generally speaking European starlings. If somebody calls us and says, I've got a
bird nest in my dryer, event ninety nine point nine percent of the time
it is a European starling. Somebody says they found a baby bird that out
from behind a sign of like a storefront, ninety nine point nine percent of
the time it's a house barrow. So like there are things that kind of
clue us in and we will try to inform them ahead of time, like
hey, just letting you know if this bird is this species. Legally,
by per state law, we cannot rehabilitate it. But if you leave it
out, the only other thing that's going to happen is it's going to suffer.
Right, it's just going to like we can't advise you how to take
care of it, and it would be inappropriate for us to do that.
And like also people don't know how to feed birds or take care of them,
so they end up all suffering anyway. So our thought is, you
know, you can bring it to us if there's no other option for it,
and we can at least prevent further suffering through humane euthanasia. So that's
how we feel about it, and we're honest about it, like we don't
try to hide it. We don't say like, oh yeah, we'll take
them, and then if people check in, we're like they're doing so well,
no worries, like yay, and meanwhile we're like euthanizing them. But
also it's just against our our our mission of helping native wildlife, Like why
would we pour resources and time and effort into animals that are actively negatively impacting
native wildlife and diversity in the ecosystem. So I know that like some organizations,
and like in other states, again the laws are different, Like people
are legally allowed to treat invasive SPECIs in Texas. I believe when I worked
in Texas, we took a lot of starlings and house barrows. But that's
kind of like their decision, and I might not agree with it, but
I'm not gonna harass other people. Like if they want to put resources into
that, and their donors know that that's what's happening, then you know that's
that's what they're gonna they're gonna fund and do with their time. So yeah,
so what okay. I actually someone asked this, what about patrons?
B asked is there a type of animal that it seems to be the most
difficult to rehab successfully and why? So I did write a little a couple
of options for this. So for the most common animals that you would see
in rehab that are difficult, I would say are adult cottontails extremely just yeah,
just because they're a praise species and they're so stressful, and generally speaking,
you're only getting an adult cotton tail if something really traumatic happened to them.
They got hit by a car, they got caught by a dog or
some other predator, hopefully not a native predator, but any way that they're
coming in right, they've got trauma. They probably have broken bones. Generally
speaking, like if a bunny comes in, an adult rabbit comes in and
they need like surgical intervention, we're generally saying that's not really going to be
a viable option, mostly because if you have to put any sort of like
pin in their like and we've tried it, we've tried it before, and
we had a rabbit that we were like, Okay, it's in a really
good spot. We think we can manage like them not messing with it,
and she literally pulled the pin out two days later and refractured it, and
it They are just so stressful we are trying. We did actually have a
recent cottontail adult come in that had a fracture in her foot, but it
was already partially healed and was in the process of healing, and it was
in a good spot. We didn't need to bandage it. She did have
a laceration on her foot that we did surgically close, but she didn't mess
with it and we are are one of our veterinarians we have two was looking
into like a really good anti like anxiety and anti stress like medical cocktail essentially.
Oh nice. Yeah. She we got it to a point where like
she was eating and she was like popping around like not messing with anything,
not in pain. But she ended up having an issue where the tendon like
adhere to the stitches because it's literally so like when you go over this in
if the tendon's right there, like you have that issue. And we ended
up having to euthanize her just because that tendon died. But she was doing
well, like she was eating and like we were looking at and we're like
wow, like this is really working. We're getting through. Like she was
with us for like two and a half weeks. It was crazy and no
problems with it. So I think moving forward we are going to like give
them more chances depending on the injury. But like anything, that's like a
huge praise. We see. Deer are a big one. Falls are a
little bit less of a problem in terms of like stress levels, but adult
deer in our state, again in Virginia, we are not allowed to rehabilitate
adult deer at all period. I guess that makes sense. That's a huge
deal, yes, and mostly it's because of like it's there's a danger factor
in there, like trying to handle and like transport and deal with an adult
deer is incredibly dangerous for both like the transporters but also the caregivers. Also,
we have chronic waste and disease in our states, so that's like a
whole other thing. Oh boy, I think that because that's not a thing
yet where we are, thankfully, so yeah boy, yeah, yeah,
it's it's a big issue here. I don't think fawn's right now. Fawn
rehabilitation is very limited because like there's different like chronic wasting disease containment zones,
but every year that containment zone gets bigger. So honestly, I think within
like the next ten years, there's probably not going to be any fawn rehab
in the state, and that might be a bigger problem for people. But
yeah, deer, and they're super stressful again too, so like they die
of capture myopathy very easily. They tend to both cottontails and deer tend to
injure themselves further when they're in care. Once they start feeling better, so
you have to sort of balance that out seek like any shore bird that's very
secretive, so like rails, snipes, anything that, Like obviously their natural
behavior relies on them being like hidden. They they're very difficult, mostly because
you have them in captivity, so that's already stressful, but now you also
have to like somehow recreate their natural foraging environment, which normally is like marshy
mud or dirt that they're like poking their beaks through with insects and like various
like sometimes crustaceans and stuff like that. So like that's very difficult, not
just in just a recreation portion, but also like having an enclosure or somewhere
in your building or if you're a home rehamber in your home that is quiet,
that is like not going to have a lot of bustling and movement in
them because that stresses them out. And they are very like if we have
a joke, like for some animals, like if you look at them wrong
or like think badly about them, like they're just so sensitive, which is
crazy. And then yeah, any specialized birds, like obviously we're not set
up for like mostly aquatic birds like loons or diving birds, anything like that,
Like we we're also inland, so like we don't really get many of
those, ye, but I'm sure like other facilities like International Bird Rescue,
they're like fully set up for that kind of stuff, but it's still you
have to replicate those environments, which can be very expensive and like, yeah,
well if you don't already have that sort of prepared, Yeah, that's
totally fair. So of course this is an animal attack podcast, so we
always have to loop back to that. So has there been a time when
you've been attacked by an animal you're trying to help? But I say that
in quotations because like it's not like a bear running at you in the middle
of the woods out of nowhere. It's like you're usually in a closed space
with an animal. That's hard. So I guess that's harm loosely, but
yeah, so it's more like like I put myself in a bad position and
the animal just did exactly what they should have done. So yeah, I
do, And it's one hundred percent. I tell people the story just to
like show that no matter how long you've been doing something like, you will
be humbled in some way. And this one hundred percent my fault, Like
I could have prevented this if I had taken a minute of extra time,
but I didn't do that. So basically, we got a call about a
bald eagle being down, but it was like forty five minutes an hour away
from us, but there was nobody in between. And with eagles, especially
because they're these large, dangerous birds, like they have huge talents and beaks,
they'll basically get you from both ends, we don't ever really try to
recommend that, like unless the bird is like really down and somebody can just
like throw a bin and flip it over, We're like, don't, don't
try anything. So there wasn't really anywhere else closer for them to go.
So I started grabbing all my stuff. And we had a vettech intern who's
very important in the story, and I said, hey, do you want
to come with me? I might need help, and it's just she was
from Colorado, so I was like, it's good for you to see this.
Let's just go do this. And as I'm trying to get everything super
quickly because I think this was like mid fall, so I think we still
had some babies, and I'm like I can't be gone for super long,
Like there's stuff that I need to do, so I'm trying to get everything
together. We get a big crate, we get a net, towels and
vetting and stuff that we can use to put in the crate and put over
him. And in that process, normally you grab leather eagle gauntlets, which
come all the way up to like above your elbow, and I'm looking around
and i don't see them, and I'm like, i just got to go.
So I grab regular what we call regular raptor gloves, which come down
to they're like welding gloves, right, they come down a little bit below
your elbow. And I'm like, it'll be fine. They said he's been
down in a ditch for like two hours. He's probably passed out, Like
what, I like, I'm bringing a net. I probably won't need it.
So that was my mistake. So we drive out there, and sure
enough, he's on this back road literally in a ditch. The guy who
called about him is standing on the other side of the road. We get
out and I'm looking at him and I'm like, okay, like he's up,
but he's like down on his butt. He's not standing, and so
I'm like, okay, he doesn't look super mobile. We can probably just
come over and like net him, throw a towel over him, put him
in the crate, and everything's fine. And so my our vet tech student
is carrying the net. I've got my gloves on and a towel, and
I'm coming over and I'm kind of bending down close to him, and he
starts backing up and behind him is this huge swath of thorn bushes, and
my only thought is like, I do not want to go digging through thorn
bushes to get this bird out of here, so I just try to grab
him by his legs before he can go anywhere else. And I grabbed one
of his legs, and his other legs shot backwards before I could grab it,
and then he just went like that and grabbed my arm literally just above
where the gloves stopped. So if I had been wearing gauntlets, I would
have been protected, but because I was stupid and cocky, I was like,
I don't need my ego gloves whatever. This again entirely my fault,
and I've learned since then to never not grab the egle gauntlets. And it's
really disappointing because like the scars that I have are very tiny and like,
oh, they're not cool, Like I got ripped like you would like I
have scars from like when a cat attacked me, and that's worse than this.
But the crazy part is is I didn't feel it. Adrenaline is a
hell of a drug. I was just because he went so right. This
is his talent. His foot, basically, his halicks, which is the
large hind toe, went fully in to my arm, and then the last
digit, the fourth digit, went in around the other side, so he
had full grip of my arm. Sometimes if you lift them up like they're
gonna fly off, they will let go just as a reflex and they'll pull
their feet in. He did not do that. Oh I tried, and
so I have his one foot he has me, and I also have that
foot, and I'm like, Cameron, so right, I don't feel it,
but I can see it, and I'm going The guy is standing across
the road. He's looking. He's like, oh, looks like he's got
a hold of you there, and I'm like, yeah, thank you,
thank you for the observation. I'm I'm here and I also feel it and
see it. So I'm like, hey, that text student, I need
you to come over here, and I need you to do something for me.
And she's never seen she's never worked with an eagle before so far,
like this was just supposed to be like here's how rescues go. And I
was like, this is not how they know. And I'm like, Okay,
what I'm gonna need you to do? Right, I've got his one
foot, so that's not a problem, and I have his other foot.
I need you to literally you have to pull open their talents, and their
talents lock through like an automatic like tendon locking like system essentially, so when
you pull their feet open, it feels like they're popping because they're popping out
of the like locking mechanisms. I don't know how to describe it better than
that. Yeah, But so she's got two talents in me, and I'm
like, do the outside one first, because it's just like the tip of
the talent is in there. She pulls that one out and that one comes
out, and I'm like, great, Now the foot is like curled into
my arm and I can see the halex is so far into my arm that
I can like the tip is poking out from like not fully out, but
it's poking up from under my skin, and I'm like, all right,
we have to do this before my adrenaline wears off because I don't feel anything
right now and I don't want to. So I'm like, you're holding a
fucking bald eagle. Yes, we got to go. So I'm describing this
her and I'm like, Okay, don't look at my arm, just look
at the look at the foot, and I need you to basically like wrench
the halls backwards. And she's like, I don't want to hurt you.
I'm like, you're gonna hurt me if you just leave. I was like,
and the whole time, I'm like just talking very normally. I'm like,
Okay, this is what we're gonna do. Okay, like I'm going
to describe it to you. You're doing great, awesome, great, like
no big deal. And so she finally gets it pulled out. We get
him, We bundle him up, and I hand him to her after I've
like gotten his legs, he'd gotten his face covered, and we walk over
to the car. I've ripped like the end of the towel off into basically
just like one long little shred and like tied it like a tourniquet around my
arm because now it's bleeding. And we get him into the crate and the
guy is still standing there and he's like, so, what's gonna happen.
I'm like, you can give us a call. We can give you and
I'm just like wrapping my arm and trying to cover it to stop the bleeding.
And I'm like, yeah, just give us a call and we can
give you an update on him, and you know, I'll be at the
hospital. Yeah. So and I'm like, okay, awesome, great,
We get himpacked up, We get into the car and I drove and I
was like to our vetech student, I was like, I need you to
drive my car and we're going to go. The plan was we'd go back
to the hospital like our facility first, drop the ego off, and then
somebody would drive me to urgent care. But ten minutes into the drive,
my arm starts like pounding and really I'm starting to like feel the effects of
having an entire talent inside my arm. And I'm like, you know what,
change of plans. There's an urgent care like twenty minutes from here.
We're going to go there and I'm gonna call my boss, who at the
time was our only vet. I'm gonna call her and she's going to meet
us there and take the eagle and take you and no big deal. And
she was like, oh my god, it's everything going to be okay.
I was like, it'll be fine, We'll be fine. Like that's my
only thought in my head is like, keep everybody calm, everything will be
fine. We get there, we fill this stuff out, and thankfully I
also have like workers comp, so like I didn't have to pay for anything
I was worried about that I was going to ask. I was like,
yeah, I called our executive director and she was like what happened? And
I was like, I just need to know what our workers' comp stuff is
and she was like all right, I'll email it to you. We get
to the urgent care, our vet meets us there, she takes the ego
and takes the our vettech back to the hospital and I'm sitting there and of
course, like once the nurses call me back and I go in the back,
like three different people come in and out and they're like, wait,
so what happened to you? Yeah, And I'm like I just need somebody
to flush this out and tell me if I need like something. I need
antibiotics, I need something to happen because like talent's disgusting whatever. And thankfully
the doctor who eventually came in and like flushed it fully out and took a
look at it, was like, oh, you're really lucky because where it
was, he was like, if it had been like half an inch closer
to like the inside of my arm, he was like, there's a really
important nerve that runs down there that could have caused you to like lose some
feeling or function of your hand, like who knows. And I was like,
great, awesome, So lesson learned. We wear ego gauntlets now,
and I have a very sad like literally just the tiniest like smaller than a
dime, like puncture winging scars on my arm. So I'm like, that's
not even worth it. The worst part was that I think he ended up
either needing to be euthanized or I think he had to be euthanized, and
I was like, we went through all that was for you to die,
Like I was so mad, I has to live now, like he has
to pay for his crimes. But I was like, I've advertised blood,
sweat and tears for this bird and then for nothing. But I mean it
was his one last hurrah. Was like, I'm just sticking to this lady
and I'm gonna send it, you know what, good for him. I
can respect that. So, oh my god. So do you know how
common it is for rehoburs to get attacked buy things they're trying to help?
I mean so from the people that I know and like the ree hobbers that
I'm friends with, I don't think it happens very often, mostly because there
are obviously things that we take into account, like ppe personal protective equipment like
gloves and goggles and things like that. We have had a few issues with,
like adult squirrels that were raised by people. That's a big one that
we get a lot, just because people will find a single squirrel, they'll
raise it for a year, and then all of a sudden they're like,
this squirrel is attacking the rest of my friends and family. I can't keep
it in my house anymore. Here you go, you guys, take it.
And the problem with that is is when you raise a baby animal and
they don't ever see or interact with like other animals of their species, they
don't have a good identity of what they are. They think that you and
them are the same. The problem with that is, like, sure,
part of it is, you know, they're going to be friendly towards you.
But the other problem is is when those animals, when those animals experience
you know, aggression, like their territory or defending their space whatever. Most
wild animals, if they were raised properly, have a fear of you.
They're not going to risk their lives because you are a predator to them.
Right, So I'm going to say, oh, I need to defend this
whole cage from you a predator. They're going to say, no, I'm
going to go hide in my box, and then if they come near me
in my box, then I'll defend myself because I have nowhere else to go.
With these animals that are identifying themselves as people or you know, they
just think we're the same. They have no fear of that we are predators
or that we can hurt them. So when they feel threatened or they have
some sort of you know, now I have to defend my territory. Because
they're adults now, they're hit it. They're going through puberty essentially for squirrels
or for other species, you know that comes with a lot of hormone shifts,
and now they're going to take that out on the things that they think
are them, which is people. So we've had a bunch of hand human
raised squirrels come in and we've given a few of them chances where we're like,
let's put them out, let's see what happens. Like sometimes if you
get us, if somebody finds a squirrel and they're too they're old enough,
right, they've been around other squirrels, then it's not as damaging. But
it's when they're like, oh, I found this baby, eyes closed and
all they've known is me and they've never seen another squirrel in their life.
That's when you have the issue they will. I've had people come out or
like even volunteers who go out because we're like, oh, they're not a
problem, they're not doing anything, and they come in and they're like,
she ran up to me and attacked me and like I was biting. You've
had staff members have to get post Brady's exposure because I get their mammals right,
and they're in outdoor enclosures, so you never know because they bit and
broke skin and people. I feel like don't realize how terrifying an adult squirrel
coming at you is considering their teeth can literally bite through bone, Like yeah,
we bite through metal people, like people's metal siding on their houses,
and that small thing is coming towards your face, Like that's terrifying to me.
Like yeah, so we get a lot of squirrels. If they go
through that, they'll attack people. We've had a few of those over the
last like five or six years. As far as like hearing other people,
I haven't heard much, Like every now and again, I see posts where
they're like just a reminder these animals are dangerous because while I was trying to
feed them, they hit me, and I'm like, I don't know if
I would post about that, but like okay, like I see it's a
thing. And then there was also like obviously you see like news articles of
non permitted people trying to rehab animals and then that coming to bite them,
mostly deer. Like there's so many, so many articles of man raised a
deer and then it grew up and god him to death when it running season,
And that's the same concept, like that deer thinks that that guy is
another one of him. So he's gonna he doesn't think it's a risk to
attack him because he thinks he's another deer. God, there's so many of
those, and like that's a huge problem. But yeah, and like I
think a lot of people assume that imprinting in birds is like not a real
thing, but it's so is a real thing. So if you have a
bird that's some like a raptor for example, that somebody raised, it now
thinks that people are birds. So you have a snowy owl that thinks that
it's a person, so when you try to go near it, it will
attack you. And that's like squirrels are horrifying, but raptors are also so
scary if they're coming at you. So like, yeah, i I'm not
schrist. We so like there's all so we also do education, right,
So we have some non release lible birds, and the only imprinted birds we
have are two vultures and a kestrel, so thankfully not any Like the vultures
obviously can cause some issues, but they're pretty well socialized at this point.
And then the kestrel's very small and he doesn't normally take aggression out on people,
at least hasn't so far knock on wood. That's good, but there
are like obviously, like when we talk about you know, good educational animals
and things like that, and you'll see that kind of around the country as
people will have imprinted birds. And on one hand, you're like, yeah,
like that makes the handling and the stress around people like so much easier
to deal with because they they're used to it, like they think that's normal.
But at the same time, the other part of that coin is like
around breeding season or around like yeah, when they would be defending territories,
they are going to exert that behavior towards you, their trainer, their caregiver.
And to me, having a great horned owl pissed off that I'm in
its enclosure where I need to be, like that is that's scary to me.
And I'm like imprinting like oh yeah, that's that's fun and like that's
a great idea, but also oh my god, like huh terrifying. There's
there's pros and cons to both, and I'm like, I don't know,
I'd rather have a bird afraid of me. And then we work through that.
Then they're like, oh, yeah, we're the same. Yeah,
I funny eventure gret horn owl. Is I work with the great horn owl,
who was like pretty I don't know. I wouldn't say he was necessarily
imprinted on people, but he was raised from very small around people and he
humped my foot and he never attacked me. But I was like, this
is weird and I don't like it. So this is uncomfortable at least heat
people like That's it's like a like you don't want that to happen, but
if it does happen, that's kind of like the sweet spot of having those
animals as education like ambassadors and work with them every day. But yeah,
it's it's a whole thing, so very related. Patroon Ali Smith asked,
are there specific things rehabbers have to keep in mind when rehabbing animals to avoid
that animal imprinting or habituation on people. Yes, so obviously, And there's
I feel like there's more than people anticipate. Like some people are like,
oh, you just like put them with other animals or with other species of
its kind, And that's a big one. Is like putting conspecifics together,
especially for like songbirds, So songbirds they are in printing and like learning their
songs and practicing their songs and stuff like that at a very early age.
So most songbird rehabilitators are going to try to get their baby birds with other
birds of the same species. Right, we have networks, so like I
can call another rehab center and be like, hey, I have a single
eyed vireo and he really needs to go with somebody. He's a hatchling,
Like, do you guys have any or we have Actually, we actually have
a Facebook group that we can like most rehabbers in Virginia are on, so
I just be like, hey, I've got this vieo, or I've got
this oriole, or I've got a single otter or something like that. So
we use that a lot for as a resource to kind of get animals with
others that they need to be with. So that's a big thing that we
do. Also kind of back on the songbirds, they learn their songs,
so we try to get them outside as soon as like they're possibly able to
go outside and not freeze to death. Thankfully, by the time we're getting
baby birds, it's quite warm in our area, so they can go out
pretty early and we want them, especially if they're in our area. We'll
either put them outside so they can hear their species sing and they have to
hear it. They have to practice it and hear themselves practice it so that
they can compare what they're hearing from the adult birds to what they're doing,
and that's how they learn their song. They have to have both of those
things together. You can't just, you know, hope that they're going to
make a song and it'll be appropriate. So if you don't have those birds
too, like sometimes we get things like we don't we have a Kadian fly
catchers in the area, but we don't have a Kadi and fly catchers in
our woods specifically, So I would then put my laptop out and have like
a Kadi and fly catcher songs playing kind of on loop. Or if I
have a bunch of different songbirds who aren't in our woods, I'll try to
find a playlist with like various types, or I'll make a playlist and play
that on loop so that they can hear the song. But there are some
problems with like certain birds where there's like local dialects, like crows crows,
you got to get out and especially if they're babies, you want to get
them out and like socializing with your local crows as soon as possible, because
like that's who they're going to be socializing with. There's also holdline, what
do we need to keep in mind? We use mirrors for kids who are
by themselves for a while if we don't have anybody to put them with,
so that at least they're not seeing us, they're seeing another one of them.
Or I'm sure you've probably been familiar working in rehab before, is like
for raptors specifically having to like basically pull on like a full gown or some
sort of costumes so that they don't see you at all. Vultures are some
of the worst imprinters in terms of like you might not you might not wear
a full mask, and they see your eyes or they see your body shape
or whatever, and like within a couple of days they're like, yeah,
that's what I am. Because they're very spiritual birds, so that that imprinting
and that knowing who they are is a very important part of their basically like
growing up. What else do we do? I have all of these notes
making sure we're not talking to animals, just like period. Every so we
take interns and I always have to like make sure at orientation and even for
volunteers as well. It's be like, we are not a petting zoo,
we are not a sanctuary. Our purpose is to get these animals back out
as competent individuals, and that includes like we are not going to baby them.
We're not going to baby talk them. These are not your pets.
Like talking not only can be stressful, but also can detrimentally impact them if
they are babies. Right, they don't want them getting used to being around
human sounds, if possible, making sure we're not over handling them, right,
We're not like cuddeling possums and squirrels and letting them climb all over us.
Raccoons especially, I see, Oh, I see a lot of people
do that, and I'm like, no, the brain works. They're just
waiting all over your clothes. Like, I'm just like, you're not even
wearing gowns. I can't pay that. Yeah, but seeing people like play
with outdoor raccoon or have raccoons as pets drives me fucking wild, knowing how
I mean, it's not nice to say raccoons are gross, but they have
a lot of gross stuff that they can pass to you. Yes, it's
not their fault, but no, it's the reality of it. So like
once you know you can't, you can't unknown they you can't unknow raccoon round
words. And then obviously, right like hazing animals, we do have to
do that, and this year we had to do a little of that.
We had two raccoon kits come in late and we immediately got them together.
They were on their own, but there were only two of them, so
they only had each other and then they had us when we came in and
fed them and cleaned them. Right, so they're outside and all of a
sudden, I'm noticing, like, you're not running away from me, Why
are you? Why are you trying to approach me? Like that's not good
for you. And while like on one hand, I'm like, oh my
god, so cute, very inflordable, so glad that you feel that way,
on the other hand, I'm like, you're gonna get shot by a
farm who if you walk up to them, they're gonna assume you have rabies.
So we do a lot of eazing when it's necessary. And that's literally
that could literally just be like you walk into a cage and you're making a
lot of noise, you're banging around or if they come out of their normally
sleep in hammocks when they're out our raccoons or in like a little Heidi hole,
and they should be up and a way from us the whole time we're
in that cage. If they come out and start kind of coming near us,
we're gonna make a lot of noise. We're going to bang on the
walls, and we might spray them a little bit with the hose and be
like, yeah, if you come near me, that's what you're going to
get. Is kind of negatively, negatively positively punishing. Yeah, I always
have to remember the plus and minus what everything means, but particularly associating us
no longer with food and like happy go fun times, but like we're scary
and we're dangerous and you need to stay away from us. And by the
end they took off out of their creates away from us. Oh good,
So it was. It's a heartfelt too. That also must be so confusing
for them. I'm sure they're like, you're feeding me, but I can't
say thanks, like what the fuck? Thankfully, they do kind of adjust
to like their normal, like their normal routine in terms of like being awake
normally at night, so when we go out and during the daytime, like
they're mostly sleeping or they're kind of like cuddled up, they're in their little
like Heidi area because they're kind of like napping. So like normally that helps
us a little bit, but sometimes we don't do the raccoons until almost the
end of our shift, and by that point they're like, I'm hungry and
they're looking for food and that's when they're out, so we sometimes have to
work around that. But yeah, those are kind of like basically just making
sure that we're trying we're number one, not raising any animals by themselves.
We're networking with others to get them where they need to be or get them
with other animals that they need to be, or we're you know, hazing
them. We're wearing masks, we're wearing entire gown get ups. We do
have puppets for some of our raptors, which is nice so that they're focusing
on, like we have a great horned alt puppet and vulture puppet and stuff
like that. Ice to feed them. Very cool. Yeah, So to
wrap it up, let's get into the last few fun questions. So our
patron nests said Jess I love following your content. I must admit your ants
are extremely satisfying. What's the animal you would absolutely love to take care of,
although we do not wish any of them harm, just speaking hypothetically,
so I don't know if this is like native animals I want to take care
of, or just like any animal, I'd like to take care of any
old animal, if it's any animal I would love to care for. Bearded
vultures number one, because they're endangered, but also just because they're like the
coolest bird I've ever seen in my life, and like, I like they're
they're huge, and they're so like metal looking, be so interesting to like
watch their behaviors, and they eat bones, so to like prepare that and
like watch them perform. Part of like the best part for me of like
caring for animals is watching them develop or partake in like their natural behaviors.
So like my my greatest joy is because I'm a bird person. I like
the mammals too, like, and raccoons are very satisfying to watch. But
seeing a baby bird for the first time figure out how to bathe in a
bath, like and they just go in and they start bathing and they're preening
and they're just fluffed up and like all wet, but they're having the best
time. Like that just brings me so much joy to like watch them figure
something out and then that like that's their normal behavior that they get to do
now, and like now they get to preen and their feathers are gonna be
good quality and like just stuff like that. So like, yeah, oh,
to be involved and not only like a really cool bird but also an
endangered bird, that would be awesome. Others I have cared for before that
I really enjoyed Bobcats are very not I don't know if fun is the right
word, but it's the same concept, Like you get to because they have
so much like need for enrichment and for like proper enclosures, Like enclosure design
is very satisfying for me to do. And like being able to like design
something and put something together and then like watch through a tiny little hole or
a camera when you put them back and watching them just like play with everything.
It's very good. Yeah, very oh yeah. Ten out of ten.
Ness also asked except keeping cats inside, which we talk about all the
time on this podcast, and dogs leased, which we also talk about this
podcast, and call it a wildlife center when finding an animal in obvious trouble
and not keeping wildlife with pets. What do people need to know? I
mean nest kind of like hit all the main the main I was like,
nest, what else? What else should people do? So that took me
a minute to really think about. I think one of my biggest things is
convincing people. Number One, birds don't need bird feeders, Like, yeah,
bird feeders are really nice for people to like look at and watch birds,
but the food that we're feeding them through bird feeders is not the food
that they really need or rely on. So trying like letting people know that
birds don't need your bird feeders. They need native plants and they need habitat
so like. And also bird feeders spread diseases if you're not cleaning them,
Like I, yeah, I'm a bird person. I don't even have I
don't have bird feeders because number one, I'm lazy and I don't want to
commit to a weekly cleaning ritual. And number two also that's expensive. I
work for a non profit. I can't afford birds seed everybe eat me at
a house and home. So I would rather write try to plant native plants
a number one, take less maintenance, but also not only provide food in
the winter time when people are concerned most about feeding birds, they also provide
proper insects, which is what most birds are feeding their babies in the summer,
even like benches and cardinals that we see as adults eating primarily seeds in
like fruits during the wintertime or during the late summer as adults, they're feeding
their babies basically a one percent insect diet, and those insects need those plants
in order to survive. So yeah, you might get adults through the winter,
but if you're not supporting their babies, then you're not supporting the actual
population. So that's like my soapbox on bird feeders. Animals that are injured,
ill, orphaned, they don't need food and water, they need medical
stabilization, which you, as a normal person without a veterinarian, cannot do.
So people always they like the I don't know why. I think it's
maybe this like weird maternal instinct or this caring instinct where they find an animal
and regardless of whether it's like a baby or like a hawk that was hit
by a car, they're like, I need to feed it. I need
to get it. And it's like the same the whole concept of like,
well, when an ambulance comes and picks you up, they don't have hamburgers
and sandwiches on the ambulance because if you're having a medical crisis or trauma,
feeding you is not the first thing, like stabilizing you is. And that's
the same thing even for orphans who aren't injured necessarily, or maybe people think
they're not injured. Generally speaking, you're not finding that orphan right away.
You're finding them hours or days later. So they're probably in some sort of
stage of starvation or they're definitely dehydrated, so trying to feed them or give
them water can actually shut their gut down even further and cause a lot of
gi problems which can kill them. Or also people are like, oh my
god, but they're babies, I need to feed them right now. They
have known training on how to feed these animals, and even like I have
volunteers, you know, that have been trained for years, and even we
still occasionally aspirate a squirrel or a bunny. And if the trained professionals are
still doing it, then the untrained professionals are definitely doing it, and aspiration
can cause pneumonia, which again can kill them. So generally speaking, if
you find an injured, ill or orphaned animal, you just put them in
a box with like some sort of cloth, hand, towel, t shirt,
whatever in the bottom of it. Put them on a heating pad on
low in a dark room away from like noises, pets, kids, whatever.
Don't open the box again to handle them or anything like that. Don't
give them food or water or try to feed them, leave them there and
then find a rehabit to take them to, because doing all of that extra
is just going to stress them out. It's just going like again, feeding
them is not what they need. They need proper care and at least keeping
them somewhere warm, dark and quiet. They are not using extra energy to
try and stay warm. For most animals, once it's dark, they're going
to go to sleep or they're gonna you know, calm down, so that
helps with the stress. And if they're injured, then if they's somewhere dark
where they're going to be kind of quiet and they can't move around too much,
they're not going to further hurt themselves thrashing around or trying to get away
from you when you're like, oh, I just want to like hold it
and pet it and take a video for my TikTok. So yeah, those
must drive you absolutely nuts. They drive me nuts. Yeah. I've had
to like ask like my co workers when they're like, oh my god,
did you see this video? And I'm like I don't want to see it.
No, I like I can't do anything about it, and they're not
going to listen to me, and I'm just gonna be stressed out about it.
So it's fun. Yeah, I get a lot, Hey do you
want to see this video of someone with a pet monkey? And I'm like,
never, Never do I want to see that. I don't even want
to know that they have it. Don't even tell me. Please just pretend
like it doesn't exist for me. That would be yep, that'd be great.
Yeah. Yeah, And I think it can also be hard when you're
telling people like the most you can do for this injured animals put it in
a box and call somebody because they know, like you're in New Hampshire,
we're pretty small. Like a lot of rehabbers just do it out of their
houses, so they might not have the space or funds to take care of
whatever animal you have, So like, maybe this isn't an issue where you
work because you're like a whole facility. But I guess, like, what
do you tell people who they can't find someone to take the animal, you
just like leave it. It's a question. Yeah, no, it's a
good question. So we do in counter that because our neighboring stay West Virginia
does not have rehabilitation at all. They have who rehab for birds, but
there's only three centers in the entire state, and technically we can take birds
across state lines, but we can't take mammals, reptiles, amphibians across state
lines. So if somebody from Charlestown, West Virginia calls us and they say,
hey, my cat attacked this cottontail, what can I do for it?
And we can say, well, you can bring it to us and
we can euthanize it so that it's not suffering anymore, or you can put
it back outside, which then most people don't want to do that, right.
They don't want to knowingly watch an animal suffer. They want to do
something about it. The other problem too, is that again the only options
really for those animals for us if they are actually injured, or they can't
be renested for some reason. Those are the only options we can legally get
them, and we're not going Sometimes people are like, well, if you
can't take it, can you at least tell me what to do? And
number one, we can't do that because it's against our permit conditions. But
number two, even if I were to describe to you in very close detail
about every single thing that you need to do to care for that animal without
actually having the hands on experience and physically doing it, the likelihood of you
doing all of that correctly just from verbal or written instruction is very well.
So most likely that animal is going to suffer anyway, right, and especially
if it is an injured animal where they don't have access to pain medications or
antibiotics. Like it's the kind of ethical dilemma of well, are you just
going to let that animal suffer because your emotions are not letting you make the
right decision, or can we at least help you revent that animal from suffering
further? It's not and like we don't like that option, Like we don't
like that there's no option for them, And we tell people like, if
you so west Virginia used to have rehab and then they got rid of it
because it was too expensive to keep up with the permit department and have you
know, animal control officers or game wardens go out and inspect people's places for
their permit and stuff like that. So they just did away with it.
And even their bird centers that they have, they don't even regulate them.
They just say because the federal government regulates birds, they said, the federal
government can take care of them. So they don't allow any new bird rehab
facilities, but they grandfathered in the ones that are there. So it is
really frustrating. And then you get people who are like doing it underground or
doing it legally. And we've had a couple of people bring us things who
are like, oh, yeah, I normally do this, like I've taken
care of like twenty thirty things like whatever, but like this one just wasn't
getting any better. And then they bring us like a bar now who's both
of their legs were broken and they've had them for a week, and we're
just like like, I know that you think that you're doing something good by
trying to help, but again, this animal has had no pain control this
animal has had no antibiotics, like and you think that them sitting in a
crate and you like force feeding them venison is what's going to help them.
So like there's a big disconnect there. And again I think, you know,
people in West Virginia were like, call your politicians and your local representatives,
like they're the ones who are going to put that back on there and
like buying the budgeting for it potentially, but until then, like those are
kind of the only the only things that we can offer for them. And
most of the time, other than West Virginia, West Virginia right now is
the only state that I know of that does not have otherwise other than birds
rehabilitation. So most of the time people are like, there's no rehab near
me, and it's like, well, did you actually do the research?
Did you look through the entire website? And just because they're not near you
doesn't mean that there isn't some sort of network in place for transporters to help
get that animal somewhere. So sometimes people are like, oh, it's an
hour drive or it's a three hour drive, and it's like, okay,
well, now you have to decide what your priority is. Is your priority
getting this animal care or is your priority? You know, maybe you don't
have gas money for it, and maybe you don't have you know, the
money to drive it an hour or whatever the time because you have to work.
But then on the same side, it's like, well, if you
don't have gas money to drive that animal, then you definitely don't have formula
money and cage money and live prey testing money. You kind of have to
look at it from both directions, right, and normally again, I just
tell people, I'm like, find the largest facility in your state, even
if they're four or five hours away from you, because they're going to know
what the status of that network is of transporters. They're going to know who's
closest to you because maybe they're not listed. Maybe there are apprentices who aren't
on the state website yet but can take things in that are closer to you.
So there's other options, but unfortunately my option is never to try and
like encourage people to care for them on their own. Because of that.
Yeah, absolutely, well, thanks so much for doing this, Jess,
and for all the good Infin know we normally talk about animal attacks. We
did talk about you getting talented by an eagle, which is crazy, but
I think it's also important to point out like what happens when we hurt animals
and how do we fix that? So thank you for this. Yeah,
no, thanks for having me. This is all I apologize rining long tangents
and I believe but the point well cool, Well, yeah, thank you
for having me, and hopefully people learn something from this, or at least
find it funny when people make mistakes, because that's always fun as long as
we can laugh at our mistakes later and we can learn from them. I'm
like, it's fine, it'd be better if I didn't have to make them,
but sometimes you do, so sometimes you have to get tell and buy
an eagle and then talk about it. It's fine. Then you get a
little scar and you wish it was bigger. It would be cooler, ridiculous.
Where can people find you? On social media? So you can find
me pretty much anywhere. Instagram, Twitter, Blue Sky at Jess in the
Wild. It's generally I think Twitter is like Jess underscore in the wild.
Instagram it's just justs in the wild. That's pretty much me. On TikTok,
it's just justs in the wild. And then if you want to follow
the facility that I work or Blue Ridge Wildlife Center. You can find us
on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok all under Blue Ridge Wildlife Center.
It should come up if you just type it in the search that fantastic follow.
I love their content, It's so good. It's a group effort.
All of our hospital staff are involved, so I'll let everybody know that they
are much appreciated. That was my interview with Jess and I hope you all
enjoyed. And if you came away from that conversation wanting to get involved in
wildlife rehab, I figured I would end this episode by listing off a few
ways that you could help. So even if you don't have a background in
wildlife rehab or just in wildlife sciences in general, you can still help by
volunteering your time. And I actually spent my morning on the day that I'm
recording this volunteering at a center that has a rehab and some non releasable animals.
And it's not always glamorous work, but every bit of effort helps,
especially in the spring and summer when there are a lot of wild baby in
need of care. So check out your local rehabilitation centers, and if you
don't know of any, try reaching out to your state Wildlife department because they
will have a list of licensed rehabbers in your state. And if you can't
donate your time, you can also help by donating food or checking local wildlife
rehab center wish lists. Many of them have Amazon wish lists for example,
and you can just help by sending the supplies that they need, or of
course by donating money. Thank you all so much for listening to episode seventy
of Get It Alive. You can check out the episode description for ways to
find Jess on social media and you can find all of our social media links
there as well. And if you liked this episode, please take a few
minutes to leave us a five star review wherever you are listening. Thank you
so much Josh Walsh for making their inter music and Jesse Walsh for the audio
and video editing. And we'll be back in two weeks with another fantastic guest.
And I'm so excited for you all to hear that conversation, so thank you