I was recently in contact with a person who offers fundraising advice to nonprofits. This person’s suggestions to me mostly covered tactics I was already using to little avail, but the big suggestion that really stuck in my craw was to de-emphasize the crappy aspects of rehab and focus near-exclusively on the “cute” stuff.
I stewed a while and finally decided to address this issue openly. Keep in mind that I offer the plain, unvarnished truth and that tact is not one of my many skills or talents.
Folks, I’d like nothing better than to report every week on the cute, sweet babies and adults that I put back into the wild. That, however, isn’t reality—not by a long shot. I don’t post these blogs to reinforce the “Disney” version of wildlife rehab, where all we do all day is play with healthy, happy animals who miraculously learn to be wild despite our constant cuddling. No, I post them to show what we really do—that while we do have successes and cute critters sometimes, this is frequently the exception rather than the norm. People need to understand how brutal and heartbreaking wildlife rehab can be sometimes; it may help them grasp why we’re as a whole an irritable, cynical lot.
Case in point: this past week. It was a hellacious, frustrating, heartbreaking week. Damn little went right from a rehab perspective. Every new intake except one either died within 24 hours or required euthanasia. I lost one of the screech owls to a rat snake (who will never eat another bird again). The single intake who survived this hellacious week may end up requiring euthanasia. Some fools left an unnested young hawk (of indeterminate species) on the ground for two days and only alerted me AFTER it had disappeared—like I could do anything at THAT point. And the “cherry on top” of this horrific week was the death this morning of the little bluebird I’d been fighting for two weeks to save. These are the weeks that make any rehabber with any vestigial shreds of sanity question their usefulness, efficacy and future as a rehabber.
So tell me, where’s the “cute” in that that’ll supposedly cause potential donors to open their checkbooks? Sometimes there IS no “cute”, only frustration, anger and sorrow. I don’t create fantasies where every intake is healthy, happy and releasable. I offer an inside look at a rehabber’s world, showing our struggle to retain some small degree of sanity, the constant scrabbling for funding, the frustration at unexplained deaths, the sorrow when a struggling animal loses the battle, the anger when people do stupid things—that’s our reality. I don’t hold back, openly admitting my mistakes and venting my frustrations, as well as sharing my successes and my sorrow for the ones I can’t save; otherwise I’d come across as some sort of superhuman hero—and I’m not. I’m an ordinary wildlife rehabber, flying by the seat of my pants and hoping like hell my britches don’t rip.
So…sorry if my lack of constant “cute” seals people’s checkbooks shut—and a final comment on that: the “cute”, healthy critters don’t usually need financial support as badly; it’s the ones who require more extensive care who eat through our limited resources most quickly, and if they’re not “cute” enough for people to help, then maybe those people are the ones with a problem, not me or any other rehabber.
On to this week’s litany of woes…
As I mentioned, the Eastern bluebird fledgling I’d been fighting to save lost her battle this morning. A vet visit ruled out parasites but she was losing weight despite being fed every half hour. We tried a few last-ditch measures to see if they’d help, and yesterday she’d perked up and was not only gaping fairly consistently but was eating a few mealworms on her own. I was hopeful that she’d turned the corner, was over whatever her mystery ailment was, and would begin to thrive again. Shortly after sunrise today, she died.
I stewed a while and finally decided to address this issue openly. Keep in mind that I offer the plain, unvarnished truth and that tact is not one of my many skills or talents.
Folks, I’d like nothing better than to report every week on the cute, sweet babies and adults that I put back into the wild. That, however, isn’t reality—not by a long shot. I don’t post these blogs to reinforce the “Disney” version of wildlife rehab, where all we do all day is play with healthy, happy animals who miraculously learn to be wild despite our constant cuddling. No, I post them to show what we really do—that while we do have successes and cute critters sometimes, this is frequently the exception rather than the norm. People need to understand how brutal and heartbreaking wildlife rehab can be sometimes; it may help them grasp why we’re as a whole an irritable, cynical lot.
Case in point: this past week. It was a hellacious, frustrating, heartbreaking week. Damn little went right from a rehab perspective. Every new intake except one either died within 24 hours or required euthanasia. I lost one of the screech owls to a rat snake (who will never eat another bird again). The single intake who survived this hellacious week may end up requiring euthanasia. Some fools left an unnested young hawk (of indeterminate species) on the ground for two days and only alerted me AFTER it had disappeared—like I could do anything at THAT point. And the “cherry on top” of this horrific week was the death this morning of the little bluebird I’d been fighting for two weeks to save. These are the weeks that make any rehabber with any vestigial shreds of sanity question their usefulness, efficacy and future as a rehabber.
So tell me, where’s the “cute” in that that’ll supposedly cause potential donors to open their checkbooks? Sometimes there IS no “cute”, only frustration, anger and sorrow. I don’t create fantasies where every intake is healthy, happy and releasable. I offer an inside look at a rehabber’s world, showing our struggle to retain some small degree of sanity, the constant scrabbling for funding, the frustration at unexplained deaths, the sorrow when a struggling animal loses the battle, the anger when people do stupid things—that’s our reality. I don’t hold back, openly admitting my mistakes and venting my frustrations, as well as sharing my successes and my sorrow for the ones I can’t save; otherwise I’d come across as some sort of superhuman hero—and I’m not. I’m an ordinary wildlife rehabber, flying by the seat of my pants and hoping like hell my britches don’t rip.
So…sorry if my lack of constant “cute” seals people’s checkbooks shut—and a final comment on that: the “cute”, healthy critters don’t usually need financial support as badly; it’s the ones who require more extensive care who eat through our limited resources most quickly, and if they’re not “cute” enough for people to help, then maybe those people are the ones with a problem, not me or any other rehabber.
On to this week’s litany of woes…
As I mentioned, the Eastern bluebird fledgling I’d been fighting to save lost her battle this morning. A vet visit ruled out parasites but she was losing weight despite being fed every half hour. We tried a few last-ditch measures to see if they’d help, and yesterday she’d perked up and was not only gaping fairly consistently but was eating a few mealworms on her own. I was hopeful that she’d turned the corner, was over whatever her mystery ailment was, and would begin to thrive again. Shortly after sunrise today, she died.
Earlier in the week, I got in a dog-attacked adult male bluebird. The only injury that I could find was a broken leg, and although the break was close to the joint, I thought he had a chance. Setting the leg was probably the easiest such task I’ve ever engaged in, and he was flexing his foot within seconds of my final wrap. I was so excited! Two hours later he had one grand mal seizure and died. There were probably internal injuries, but there was no swelling or hardness indicative of internal injuries.
The red-shouldered hawk stubbornly refuses to eat on his own but continues to shriek like a banshee when I feed him—or look at him, for that matter.
Look at the difference in this head shot and last week's--almost no "dandelion fluff"!
This blue jay came in as a pre-fledgling early in the week, and while I found no injuries, when he hopped out of his nest within a day of intake, he refused to place any weight on his left leg. A vet visit for him confirmed no injuries, with the possible exception of nerve or soft tissue damage, neither of which will show on an x-ray or can be felt with a physical exam. I had started steroids prior to his vet visit; we opted to continue this treatment. I stopped, however, when swelling developed in the joint above his foot. To date, the swelling remains; Epsom salt soaks have made little difference, although they have reduced the hardness of the swelling. If we can’t get this issue straightened out, he has no future to look forward to; he can’t even stand properly at the moment. Keep your fingers crossed for the little guy—and for me. I desperately need a success story—and soon.
The screech owls should have been safe, but yesterday within the space of 30 minutes, a rat snake managed to get into their pen and eat one of my babies. Had I not been doing 30-minute checks, he probably would have eaten the other one, too; as it is, when I went to check on them, one of the babies was hanging from the top of the pen and I thought he’d gotten hung. I pried him loose and started to put him back into the shadowed area with his sib and the damn rat snake, hiding in the shadows, bit me—and to be honest, I was too pissed that he’d eaten one of my babies to even be alarmed that I’d been bitten (and rat snakes are non-poisonous, anyway, people, c’mon…). Needless to say, he was terminated with extreme prejudice. I realize it didn’t help the screech he’d eaten, but he’ll never kill another baby bird.
The surviving screech was pretty traumatized yesterday but has recovered and is full of piss and vinegar today. He's also been placed inside in a snake-proof reptarium, with a cardboard nest box.
The surviving screech was pretty traumatized yesterday but has recovered and is full of piss and vinegar today. He's also been placed inside in a snake-proof reptarium, with a cardboard nest box.
"I'm trying to be invisible, but it just makes me look like a little doofus."
The flyer has been moved to pre-release caging; the short clip below is from earlier in the week, when she was still taking small bits of formula from me. Sorry for the background roar; the AC in the rehab area is shot and I'm awaiting delivery of a new unit, so in the meantime we have fans set at max.
Here’s hoping this week is less fatal and less nerve-wracking. I really need a good week about now…
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