Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello and thank you for such a wonderful site. I've been interested in wildlife rehabilitation for a while and have recently started a Fish and Wildlife course at college. We have been assigned a project that we get to chose the topic. Rehabilitation centers have always interested me and so I am jumping on the chance to research them, but its hard to find statistics and resources on centers. Any information anyone could give would be great. Things like capital and financial income, types of injuries, successes and losses.I live in Canada as well that might be a little different. I am looking forward to learning more about this as it has always been a dream of mine to start up a center.
Thank You once again.

Liza....my email is...lizalap@hotmail.com

Would information about what species and what problems are commonly seen help? If it would, here is some info.

It appears that during the spring and summer, about 70 or so percent of the animals that come in are birds. Of them, probably another 3/4 are babies. The babies are usually out of nest youngsters that have been removed by people, siblings, or other animals. A very significant percentage of all birds received have been caught by feral cats or even just cats that people have as pets that live outdoors, which I guess could be considered feral as well to a degree. As far as species, dove and pigeon species as well as sparrows, blue jays, mockingbirds, and chimney swifts seem to be the most common intakes. We do receive everything from large raptors such as kites, barn owls, and red tail hawks to some of the smaller species of raptors such as screech owls. Seasonally, calls and intakes of herons, egrets, and other water birds come in fairly often.

Squirrels and possums also make very frequent apperances. Again, most of the time they are young babies that have been displaced. Being in southeast Texas, rainfall is rather substantial and therefore, when it rains, animals are knocked from their nests. Squirrels often are seen because of this. Many have broken limbs, though they heal quite well as most of the babies are too young to be active. As for possums, many of the ones we receive are from adult females that have been hit by cars. We do receive some that are not hurt, but have been caught in traps set by people in their yards.

Raccoons, though we can not accept them often as our rehabilitators are always overloaded, are either received or asked about quite frequently.

I can try and find out some more concrete figures as I believe our reports were finished not too long, but that is sort of an idea of the most common animals we see.

I don't have any real statistics either, but here's some random information that you might find useful. The rehab center that I work at is on Long Island, NY. We generally see the same types of animals that snakeguy mentioned. In the winter we tend to have a larger proportion of waterfowl, possibly due to the majority of the lakes and ponds freezing over. In the past few weeks we've had brants, canada geese, swans, and an assortment of ducks. Many have lead poisoning, another has neurological problems, one has eye injuries from a collision, one apparantly beat himself up trying to get into a building for shelter.

Aside from the orphans of "baby season," most songbirds come in as cat attacks or window collisions. Adult opossums and squirrels are brought to us with respiratory or neurological conditions, or as hit-by-cars. Rabbits (including young ones) are often victims of cats, dogs, lawnmowers, and unnecessary human intervention. Most of our reptiles are eastern box turtles who come in as dog attacks or hit-by-cars. Our permanant hawks and owls are often missing an eye or wing; one has chronic respiratory problems, a few are imprinted on people and are too tame to be released. Those that are released sometimes come as orphans or victims of collisions. Gulls are frequently brought in after being hit by cars.

Our establishment is not licensed or equipped to take in very large animals or rabies vector species, so we do not take bats, raccons, foxes, or deer (to name a few), although other independant rehabbers in the area do.

Our center is a fairly large facility (housed in a modified barn and the surrounding property) that cares for 800 to 1000 animals per year, and has about 40 permanant animals. Our release rate was around 34% last year, which I think is slightly higher than the average. Other animals may not have survived, were kept permanantly for educational purposes, or were transferred to other rehabilitators. The center is entirely funded by donations and membership fees, and run by six paid staff members and a changing number of volunteers (generally somewhere around 30). I have been volunteering there for three years and am planning on being a staff member this summer.

Our shelter facility itself is rather small, based in an old stop and go store in the west side of Houston, Texas. I believe we receive over 5000 animals a year, and we are the only freestanding shelter in something like a 200 mile wide area. We sell objects like cookbooks, mugs, shirts, etc. that companies donate to raise money. We also receive donations from people that bring in animals, people at home shows, and people just looking to donate money to a good cause. We are currently in the process of raising money to acquire a new facility out further west of Houston where we will have room to actually raise larger animals at the facility. We have a few educational animals that are animals that can not be released due to their injuries:the pigeons Fancy Pants and his recently chosen mate, Priscilla, Webster the muscovy duck, Rat the anerytheristic TX rat snake, Blossum the opossum, and we have Norah the cat to keep the rats and mice out of the feed.

I mentioned a couple of our permanant animals, let's see if I can name them all (well, some have names)...

Red Tailed Hawks: Baby, Lucky Lady, Rufous, Taylor

Great Horned Owl: no-name

Kestrels: Buster, Hola, one no-name

Barred owl: Barry

Screech owls: Loopy, Duncan, one no-name

Saw-whet owls: two no-names

Common Moorhen: Molly

American Oystercatcher: Ollie

Mourning Doves: two no-names

American Robin: one no-name

Opossums: Thelma and Louise

Mallard duck: one no-name

Rouens: White-wing and Mama duck

Muscovy: no-name

Eastern Box Turtles: Bucky, Nino, and a few other no-names

Musk turtle: one no-name

Milk Snakes: two no-names

I might have forgotten a couple, but I think that's all of them. And I forgot to mention, our clinic also has a small gift shop. Since we're located in a state park, we sell mostly drinks and snacks to visitors, but we also have t-shirts, magnets, gifts/trinkets, birdseed and feeders.