Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Back into the wild.

Today I got the very awesome privilege of releasing some birds back into the wild. I volunteer at a place that does wildlife rehabilitation.  I was hesitant when I first started to volunteer there because they have a approach that is completely different to that of the vet clinc. See in the vet clinic were very hands on, we talk, pet, cuddle, hand feed,  and sometimes carry around the pets as they stay with us. We think that it helps to make the clinic environment less stressful and more like they would  feel at home. All this extra attention is one of the reasons I love doing my job. Wildlife rehabilitation isn't like that at all. The philosophy is that if you spend too much time interacting with the animals then they will not thrive in the wild. They want to have the ultimate goal be a successful return to the wild, and that requires very very minimum human interaction. So there everything is covered up, you talk in a whisper, feed through a lot of cracks and holes in the walls, rarely get to touch them and when you do its always in a towel or blanket so that the animals never knows that it was a human bothering it.  Sometimes you walk in and see a cage with a sheet over it and never once see whatever is in it. You know that its some sort of animal, but you are not allowed to take a peak to see. Its hard for me sometimes cause I wanna look through the cracks,  but know that I can't.  So you go about your day and sometimes the cage next to you rustles so you can tell its a bird, or makes a growling sound so maybe its a bear, or some barking so maybe a seal. This elaborate guessing game is sometimes pretty fun. But honestly  at some point you will get to know what is  behind the sheets,  you just don't get to touch it, or interact with it, or let it see you very much.

The hard part about rehab isn't the lack of interaction. Its the number of things that come in that can't be helped. See the flip side of this is that if the animal is injured beyond repair and could never live successfully in the wild, then they really do think that euthanasia is the best option. So as much as medicine can help its not always enough, especially without the help of major human intervention. Today there was a seagull that had a broken wing that they had pinned back in place a few weeks ago. The problem is that he still wasn't using it at all and the muscles are starting to waste away. They think  now that he wont be able to every return to the wild. They feel that they will have to euthanize him soon. I understand that part because they could never let this bird go out and not be able to fly. I mean flying is a huge part of his natural life, and where do you send a seagull that could never fly again?  Is it OK to keep a wild animal in captivity even if it is injured? I don't know what the answer is to that is, but I know that the place I volunteer for says No. Its never OK to keep a wild animal captive even if it is injured because you can never completely replicate its natural environment. It is sad though, because you hate to think about all that money, time, and effort that is put into this seagull just being a wasted effort.  But I guess this is the nature of wildlife rehabilitation. I mean is it any less horrible to release something that cannot fend for itself  against predators? Or to not bring in the injured bird and let it fend for itself in the wild?  Or heck to just let it suffer with a broken wing and see what happens? I feel like at least it was given the chance to survive but the truth is, not because of any rhyme or reason, I guess he just wasn't dealt the cards to survive.  I feel sad for him and all of us who have worked with him,  because its never happy to have to euthanize anything even if you can justify it.

Anyways back to the good part of the story. So the really great part about wildlife rehab is when something gets to be released back into the wild. Today that was given to both a wood duck and a thrush. The wood duck had been unable to fly due to unknown reasons, but then a few weeks ago just randomly started to again. Was its malnourishment or sickness no one will ever know. What we do know is that he happily swam off into the pond where I released him, like nothing was ever wrong with him, and never looked back. Next I drove a few miles south to release a thrush into the forest. He also flew instantly out of the box and off with out any hesitation. I mean heck he was probably totally unaware about the part we played in getting him to this moment. I mean that's why we go through all those measures to keep them hidden from human interaction right? So that they will never see a human as a positive facet in their universe  I didn't think that I would care about these releases all that much. I mean I was happy to be able to do them and glad that they had been given them their freedom back.  But I never would have expected to get this huge sense of pride or happiness that I ended up with.. It was nice to be able to save something, to allow it to return home, it made up for the decision about the poor seagull who just got dealt a bad hand. But without those decisions, those really hard decisions then your left with nothing but the joy.


That's the thing about life...You have to take all these moments in good and bad . You have to make them a part of who you are. That's what I am realizing the older I get.  The things that matter are the little things, the things that you don't work at, the moments you don't plan for, remembering how those moments make you feel and trying to replicate them as often as possible.  Finding that balance between happiness and sadness is a struggle at times, but you figure it out, you have too. So for me today just knowing that I was able to be a small part of something so much bigger then me, is really a amazing thing. This must be what makes a for a happy life.

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