As it now still happens that non-professional individuals find orphaned wildlife and try to raise it, we are often confronted with sick animals due to wrong upbringing. But what is often the case, that they bring the wildling to us, to release it as they themselves often failed in their attempt to release the animal back. This failure has different reasons, sometimes it is just the emotional attachment to the raised animal, sometimes they see that the animal is not fit for the wild yet, and often sadly the animal has an emotional attachment to the human-foster parent, which means it is imprinted.
And this is then when the hard work starts for us, which sadly often doesn’t get much acknowledgment. To train a wrongly raised animal to be fit for release costs a lot of time, resources and nerves. These animals need to be kept in enclosures, without any human contact, they need to have contact to their own species. They must be trained to find the appropriate food, show fear towards predators (including humans!) and how to find shelter.
But all of this is only possible after a strict behavioural assessment, which tells the rehabilitator if the animal is actually able to enter the learning process.
This assessment includes: How does it react to human voices, presence, approach – in different stages of moods (fed or unfed, etc.) How close can a human get to the animal; can you chase it away from its seat? Does it accept food from the human? How does it respond to calls of its own species? To calls of different species? Does it express fear to humans, conspecific? How does it react in new situations? How does it feed?
These are just a few points that are recorded and determined. A full physical exam is performed as well.
We recently had a case of a crow that was raised by a private individual. The crow was approx. 1.5 years old and probably all its life in captivity. Unfortunately, the person was not able to give us more information about the life of the crow, other than that it likes dry dog food. The person tried to release it before, but the crow refused to leave that persons arm.
The first assessment was very unnerving, as the crow did not leave our side after its “foster-parent” left. It sat on our shoes or, if offered, on our arms. It showed signs of malnourishment as the joints and toes were deformed. Also, all its flight and tail fathers were destroyed and therefore the crow was not able to fly at all. But it did not show any wanting to fly anyway. We did not record any vocalization from the crow. We offered it a cage with food and toys (such as sticks, pinecones, etc.) to get adjusted to the new location and situation. The crow was very stressed, and we hoped it would calm down eventually.
The following days the crow showed no signs of improvement. It did not eat any of the offered food, it did not want to be alone in the cage but when it was released out of the cage it still showed clear signs of distress. The crow continued to sit on anyone’s shoes but showed obvious signs of fear when a hand approached. It did not want to be touched but did not want to be left alone either. The only food it took was dry dog food, and only if it was offered by hand (which it feared). The deformities in toes and joints were uncomfortable and the birds showed signs of pain. Unfortunately, the feather deformities were due to self-destructive behaviour probably due to stress and boredom. When ignored it began to prune and bite the feathers vigorously until they broke.
It was like the crow knew that it was not meant to be with humans but has forgotten (or never learned) to be a crow either.
With all these negative points it was hard to watch. The physical examination was not great due to the deformities, the behavioural assessment was catastrophic.
There was no chance to release the crow as it was now. To isolate it in an aviary would lead to more feather destruction and there was no way in introducing it into a family of crows, as it showed no signs of recognition of a conspecific.
In cases like this, it is difficult to decide what is the right choice. If it was clearly communicated to the public that wildlife care should be only done by professionals, we might not have to deal with situations like this. These decisions are tough for the animal and tough for us.
All possible decisions have to be considered and it has to be the best possible outcome for the animal. The decision has to take into account what is best in both the short and long term. And we must also keep in mind what this decision means for others. If a rare aviary space is taken up by the crow, what other animal will not get this chance? The space that aviaries take up is also a loss of possible space for free-living wildlife. We already take so much from nature, is it then fair to build more and more, particularly for non-releasable, non-breeding wild animals. Also, there is the matter of food, in this case crows eat meat, so is it ok to use the meat (the life) of other healthy animals to feed on just for the sake of being in a cage forever. Should we not invest our resources (limited resources) more considerately and with the best possible outcome in mind?
It is sometimes difficult, and it seems harsh to think like that, but working in wildlife rehabilitation every day, you have to stay as objective as possible.
As I am of the opinion that wildlife should not be kept in cages, unless for conservation or foster-parenting, and as I want to see a wild animal living and thriving and not just surviving (for just the sake of being alive), I don’t support the idea of keeping imprinted wild animals in captivity, especially a stressed, sick and unhappy one like the crow in this case.
