Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States 1

Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States:

An Analysis of the Pros and Cons of Conservation Efforts and their Effects

Olivia Nigro

Stockton University
Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States 2

Abstract

While wildlife rehabilitation is widely accepted as a worthwhile aid to natural environments,

there are many pros and cons to the practices within these rehabilitation facilities. Although their

efforts help endangered species, educate the public, and spur wildlife studies, rehabilitation

centers are very costly to run, are often unsuccessful in their efforts, and they run the risk of

spreading zoonotic pathogens among both humans and animals. There are also problems within

the practice as they sometimes go against other conservation efforts and contain dissenting

subgroups that make their goals vague. While the amount of studies surrounding this practice are

increasing, there are still many unknowns relating to proper release procedure, long term

survival, and the impacts of human interaction on survival. Overall, it is very important that

rehabilitation centers continue to collect data through their efforts and stay in touch with current

scientific literature to ensure that their practices care for these injured and ill animals in the best

way possible.
Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States 3

Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States: An Analysis of the Pros and Cons of

Conservation Efforts and their Effects

Introduction

The necessity of wildlife rehabilitation has been debated for years. To the general public,

the need for these conservation efforts seems crucial to environmental wellbeing. A study done

by Kidd et al. (1996) interviewing volunteers at wildlife rehabilitation facilities found that some

of the top reasons given to explain why they worked in this field were because they liked

working with animals, liked making a difference, and they had concerns for nature and the

environment. While this is true, it is very important to look at the ecological impacts of such

practices. Many studies are being conducted to truly understand wildlife rehabilitation successes

and downfalls in a variety of ways. Some studies focus on one species to quantify successes

(Molony et al., 2006), while some concentrate on specific environmental disturbances that can

affect rehabilitation success (Estes, 1998), and others collect data from rehabilitation centers

across an area to learn about their accomplishments and downfalls (Hanson et al., 2019).

A wildlife rehabilitation center is a place that takes in injured or sick animals and caters

to their needs in order to release the animals back into the wild. The workers try to provide the

animals with the care that they need without having too much contact and affecting their ability

to survive in the wild someday. These organizations are often non-profits that rely mostly on

donations and fundraising to be able to care for their animals. The care provided at these

facilities is usually a combined effort of veterinarians, volunteers, and interns of all ages who are

pursuing careers in related fields or are interested in helping the environment. While not all

efforts are successful, since some animals die or are marked as unfit to be released and are kept
Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States 4

as education animals, these organizations still take in and release large volumes of animals back

into the wild every year (Hanson et al., 2019).

Recent studies have shown that in a span of two years, 59,370 individual cases were seen

across New York rehabilitation facilities alone (Hanson et al., 2019). Of these wildlife cases,

52.6% were birds, 42.9% mammals, 4.1% reptiles, and 0.1% amphibians (Hanson et al., 2019).

Intake procedure data has shown that a large number of these cases occur because of human

activity and the negative effects of these anthropogenic factors are growing with time (Schenk &

Souza, 2014). These wildlife rehabilitation centers are important to communities because they

educate the public, collect data about the wildlife that they are working with, remedy some

effects of natural and anthropogenic environmental disturbances, and help endangered species.

Although rehabilitation is seen as mostly positive, it is also important to note the immense costs

of rehabilitation and growing needs for volunteer help. Studies have shown that rehabilitation

runs the risk of introducing pathogens into natural systems, posing a health risk to humans, and

conflicting goals of other environmental organizations. There are also controversies surrounding

their work since animals do frequently die in their care and there are a lot of unknowns about a

variety of their procedures. This paper will further explore these pros and cons of wildlife

rehabilitation to examine whether rehabilitation efforts are necessary and to determine where

practices can improve.

Literature Results

Hanson et al. (2019) found that out of all of the wildlife cases submitted to wildlife

rehabilitation centers across New York in two years, 38.2% were due to trauma, 36.8% to

orphaning, 6.3% to habitat loss, 3.4% to infectious disease, and 1.5% toxin or poison exposure.
Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States 5

Because of the many negative impacts that human beings have on natural environments and the

wildlife within them, refuge centers aim to restore ecosystem balance through rehabilitation by

saving the lives of animals that were harmed by humans. Molina-Lopez et al. (2011) found that

wild raptor species had significant life-threatening injuries caused by a variety of human actions

including injuries from gunshots, electrocution, powerlines, motor vehicles, fences, and getting

trapped in buildings and chicken farms. These human effects are taking a large toll on

ecosystems, triggering declines in biodiversity (Donald et al., 2001), causing oil spills with long

lasting effects (Kingston, 2002), spurring climate change that increases the likelihood of extreme

weather events (Huber & Gulledge, 2011), and contributing to habitat destruction and

fragmentation, which are the most important factors in extinction events (Fahrig, 1997). All of

these effects and many more are harming a variety of animal species and are causing the number

of animal submissions to rehabilitation centers to increase its mean from 12,583 to 19,790

annually (Hanson et al., 2019). Wildlife rehabilitation organizations are working to lessen the

anthropogenic effects that are causing worldwide endangerment and extinction of many species

by helping the animals that are experiencing these effects. One example of this is the increased

rehabilitation of bald eagles because of their heightened susceptibility to toxins, injuries, and

respiratory diseases, and their previous distinction as an endangered species (Hanson et al.,

2019). Although these birds are difficult to rehabilitate because of their very specific needs and

likelihood of complications, wildlife centers have increased their release rate to 45.5% in an

effort to aid their population (Hanson et al., 2019).

Along with providing needed care to a large variety of animals, these institutions act as

an important community resource for wildlife education (Hanson et al., 2019). Siemer et al.

(1991) found that around 57% of rehabilitation facilities provided educational resources in some
Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States 6

way to their communities. The primary mode of education used by these facilities was found to

be one on one conversations with the people who delivered animals to their rehabilitation

centers. Given the large amount of cases that they dealt with yearly, this provides personal

educational interactions with thousands of individuals. Many of these rehabilitation centers were

also shown to give written information out to the public, do newspaper, television, and radio

interviews, and give presentations to schools, youth groups, and other more general

communities. The main subjects of these interviews were said to be showing people how to

know if an animal needs help, knowing the laws that limit people from keeping wild animals as

pets, the importance of habitat conservation, and the human impacts on wildlife (Siemer et al.,

1991). One refuge in particular, Woodlands Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, made a documentary

explaining their rehabilitation process with young bear cubs and provides daily live video feeds

of many of the animals that they are caring for (Woodlands Wildlife Refuge, 2019). This

rehabilitation center, along with many others, offer education programs for people to tour the

facilities and learn about the wildlife that are cared for within them. Through educational

programs, volunteer training, videos, and websites, many of these rehabilitation centers provide a

lot of information for the public. This education can be very helpful for both wildlife and those

who are working in the rehabilitation centers. One example of this is in the unnecessary

intervention of orphaned animals. It has been found that around 1,000 animals in the New York

area are submitted to rehabilitation centers yearly as orphans when the animals aren’t actually in

need of help (Hanson et al., 2019). Part of their job as rehabilitators is to teach people about

natural behaviors of the species that they care for in order to reduce this number (Hanson et al.,

2019).
Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States 7

When it comes to educating their workers, many organizations provide resources to the

employees to keep them up to date. The NWRA in particular has a membership program where

they provide rehabilitators, veterinarians and related fields with a variety of resources so that

they can be better informed on new scientific literature. This kind of program can provide

rehabilitators with important critical news and time-sensitive announcements about things like

new diseases of concern that they have to learn how to treat and handle cautiously to ensure the

safety of their employees. Through emails, bulletins, newsletters, and symposiums, this

association aims to educate workers so that they can conduct their jobs in the most effective way

with the most relevant information (NWRA, 2018).

In terms of scientific literature, these wildlife centers provide a precedent for data

collection among the wildlife that they deal with. Since less than 3% of rehabilitation centers

handle over 300 cases yearly, while the rest of them handle only around twenty-five, data about

these programs can be easily attained by targeting these larger institutions. This kind of data can

inform scientists about species health, natural history, case numbers, affected species, causes,

and treatments. One study in particular done by Schenk & Souza (2014), found that the effects of

cats and dogs on natural wildlife populations accounted for 20% of their intakes. This caused a

huge problem with predator pollution, which is when the environment is “polluted” by

artificially introduced predators, including domestic dogs and cats in this case. This kind of data

is important because it assesses the effects of different factors on wildlife health in order to guide

future policies and public education. An example of this would be using the data collected by

Schenk & Souza (2014) to educate pet owners about the dangers of interactions between pets and

natural wildlife and to enact policies prohibiting domestic dogs and cats from being outside

unleashed so they wouldn’t be able to harm this wildlife.

Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States 8

While wildlife rehabilitation can provide many benefits to natural communities, it is also

important to look at some of the challenges of their practices. The first issue with these facilities

is the immense costs and needs for donations and workers. The costs can vary greatly depending

on the type of animal being cared for and its specific needs in relation to how severe its sickness

or injury is. Regardless of this, large facilities that care for thousands of animals yearly need

large amounts of money for food, medicine, surgeries, enclosures, maintenance, electricity, etc.

One study done by Moore et al. (2007) found that the care for a single pinniped at a large

pinniped rehabilitation center in the US averages about $2,500 each. Because most of these

organizations are non-profits, they rely heavily on volunteer and intern work where employees

do very physical jobs with long hours for no pay.

Within these populations of rehabilitation workers, there is also a large health risk to

those involved. Since many of the animals within the care units are ill, it is important to weigh

in the risk of diseases jumping from infected animals to the humans involved. Studies have been

done about diseases such as morbillivirus, influenza, caliciviruses, leptospirosis, and seal finger

which are all zoonotic pathogens that can be of concern to rehab workers (Moore et al., 2007).

There is also a risk of asymptomatic diseases infecting workers since the animals are showing no

sign of sickness. Not only do these pathogens pose a threat to humans, but also to the other

animals within and outside of the facilities when they are released. When the animals are held in

refuges, they are in close contact with other animals and people and are given antibiotics or other

medicines. Because of this, diseases have the potential to become altered and pose a higher

threat. One study done on elephant seals (Moore et al., 2007) has found that the illness

Escherichia coli was increased through rehabilitation processes. Similarly, a study on harbor

seals with the disease leptospirosis in a rehabilitation center in California found that the source of
Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States 9

this illness could have been sea lions or elephant seals that were housed nearby (Stamper &

Spraker, 1998). This issue poses a high risk in states such as New York, Connecticut, and New

Jersey who rehabilitate rabies vector species (RVS), which are animals that can carry the rabies

virus, and have the potential to infect both humans and other animals with rabies (Casey &

Casey, 1995). To combat this issue, wildlife rehabilitation policies include strict rules about

dealing with RVS that require workers to get vaccines before working with them and demand

that species at risk are quarantined upon arrival.

Other than potential illnesses, rehabilitation can sometimes conflict with other

conservation efforts. One example of this is shown in Moore et al. (2007), which describes how

pinniped populations were growing around 10% yearly because of rehabilitation efforts. This

increasing release of healthy pinnipeds had some unintended negative effects on an organization

working to conserve salmon populations since pinnipeds eat salmon. There are also different

sects within the realm of wildlife rehabilitation that differ greatly in their attitudes towards how

to best help the injured and sick wildlife, creating dissent within the field and making their goals

vague (Siemer et al., 1991). Wildlife management professionals and governmental agencies tend

to be more oriented towards only rehabilitating endangered species, keystone species, and those

that maximize biodiversity while rehabilitators are more concerned with preserving the

individual lives of all species. These differing opinions can pose a large problem by putting

distance between two entities working towards similar goals, preventing them from being able to

work efficiently together to inform the public and pass regulations (Siemer et al., 1991).

One controversial aspect of wildlife rehabilitation is the amount of deaths within facilities

despite the extensive costs and labor input. In a study done by Hanson et al. (2019), only 50.2%

of the animals cared for survived and were able to be released while 45.4% died and 0.3% could
Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States 10

not be released. While these numbers look unappealing, it is important to note that when animals

that died within the first two days of their care were removed from these statistics, around 70.8%

were able to be released. This removes the animals that were accepted into their care in very bad

conditions and didn’t survive very long, showing that most of their more long-term rehabilitation

efforts were successful. Because a decent number of animals do die within the care of wildlife

rehabilitation centers, many skeptics question whether the funds put into these projects were

better off being put towards things like research or conservation.

There are also still many uncertainties about a variety of things within this field. There is

little research that informs workers on the best way to release animals- whether it be near the

facility or somewhere else. There is also a lack of evidence showing that rehabilitation efforts

ensure long-term survival of animals and it is unknown whether their time outside of the wild

affects things like foraging and reproduction. Similarly, it is unknown if their interactions with

humans while being cared for affects their ability to adapt back into their natural habitats.

Despite all of these unknowns, wildlife rehabilitation is still a worthwhile practice. The

positives of rehabilitation that enhance community education about the human impacts on

wildlife species and provide a medium for data to be collected about these anthropogenic effects

outweigh the negatives. Regardless, these negatives do still exist and are important to diminish as

much as possible by improving practices to cut costs, lessen animal deaths within their care, and

prevent disease form spreading through animals and human populations. It is also important that

wildlife rehabilitation centers increase research into release strategies, long-term survival, and

effects of human interactions within facilities.

Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States 11

Conclusion

Since wildlife species are continually and increasingly admitted to wildlife rehabilitation

centers across the United States, it is important to question whether or not these labors are worth

the effort. The pros and cons included in this debate provide an interesting view of some of the

factors that play into this decision. Because of the contributions to community education and

data collection within the wildlife rehabilitation field, their practices are very worthwhile.

Despite this, there is still work to be done to find ways to reduce costs, protect workers and

animals from pathogens, and reduce dissenting opinions within the field. Further research is very

necessary within these facilities to attain better release strategies, a better understanding of long-

term survival and more information about the effects of human interactions during rehabilitation.

As said by Hanson et al. (2019), collecting large-scale rehabilitation data through standardized

rehabilitator reporting is very important in order to improve resource allocation, treatment

methods, education, and overall decision making. Through these efforts, both rehabilitation

facilities and governmental regulators will be provided with better insight in order to help these

animals in the most efficient and effective way possible.

Wildlife Rehabilitation Across the United States 12

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