Wildlife Rehabilitation Flashcards
Who are the stakeholders in wildlife rehabilitation?
- the animals
- the public who find the animals
- the government agencies that regulate wildlife
- carers/organizations
- veterinarians
Expectations of government agencies
- Maintain oversight, but not primary responsibility
- Produce rules and guidelines for wildlife rehab
- Provide financial support for care organisations to a moderate extent
Carers: Organisation vs. individual
Organisation
- well structured policies
- turn over fairly significant
- requires training of staff
Individual
- expectations are all over the place
- can be very opinionated, vocal and critical
Rules for wildlife rehab
- Feral species must be destroyed
- Return animals within close proximity to where they were found
- Can’t release with infectious disease or injury that will compromise survival
- Release in timely manner
- Cannot be kept as pets
How can rehab do more harm than good in some cases?
- Animals die from starvation
- Disease transmission
Why do we do it?
- Public expectations
- Moral conscience or passion for wildlife
- Disease surveillance
- Saving endangered species or learning to save them
Caring for sick and injured animals
- Treatment (only if they can return to 100% function, otherwise - euthanise)
- Recuperation
- Preparation for release
Caring for orphaned animals
- Parenting
- Preparation for release
Which orphans are most likely to have a positive outcome?
- Those that are hard-wired
- Lease territorial
- Do not or not allowed to imprint
Preparation for release of orphans
- Learn species behaviour (feeding & socialisation) - best if they can see adult behaviour
- Issues of predator avoidance
- Soft release programs most successful
Preparation for release of adults
- Key is fitness - need to be able to catch food
- Release where found (genetics, familiar area)
- Provide shelter (sometimes food)
Example: Wombats
- During care, survival was influenced by age at admission, weight at admission, attitude and response to treatment
- 62% survived until end of study
Example: Wombats - which factors had NO impact on outcome?
- Initial injury
- Amount of care
- Gender
- Raising in pairs
- Supplemental feed
- Season of release
- Number of days in care
Example: Wombats - which factors DID impact on outcome?
- Age of joey (older better)
- Response to treatment
- Extent of imprinting (less better)
- Post release monitoring - increased survival rate
Example: Wombats - causes of death
- Dog attack
- Wombat attack
- Burrow collapse
Example: Peregrine Falcons and Brown Goshawks - Conclusions
- More intensive exercise programs necessary to improve post release survival
- Post exercise lactate - good indicator of fitness
Example: Ring-tailed Possums - Results
Survival of translocated vs hand-raised was approximately the same
Example: Ring-tailed Possums - Causes of mortality
- Fox (50%) and cat accounted for most
- Python
- Goanna
- Raptor
- Other unknown predator
- Road kill
- Bush fire
Example: Ring-tailed Possums - Contribution to reproduction
- All translocated animals had joeys when they were recaptured
- Few or none of translocated animals had time to raise young before being eaten
Example: Ring-tailed Possums - Conclusions
- Introduced predators are putting significant pressure on ring-tailed possums in this area
- Hand-raised/translocated are at a sig. greater risk of being taken
