Stress reduced rehabilitation and release

Posted on by R.F. in Media, Wildlife Rahbilitation

Today I want to demonstrate a method of stress reduced rehabilitation and release for situations in which the animal requires a certain level of fitness/skill to be released and your facility does not have the proper training facilities available.

The wild animal, in this case, was a subadult female kestrel in good body condition. She was admitted to our centre with a fractured ulna and radius of the right wing and a fracture of the right tibiotarsal bone. Regarding the history of the injuries, we suspected a car accident.

The fractures were repaired with internal pins and bandages. The healing process was a bit delayed, probably due to the stress the patient experienced, as she was a very nervous individual in the beginning. Otherwise, the healing was uneventful.

Due to the bandaging, the kestrel displayed difficulties with feeding herself at the beginning and was hand-fed for about 2 weeks, until she was able to feed herself from a plate.

After the pins were removed the kestrel was moved from her treatment box to an indoor aviary which is approximately 2 metres x 1.5 metres – too small for flight training, but due to limited space in our facility, the only option. But the kestrel demonstrated good improvement by training herself to fly from the bottom to the top branch, a flight/jump distance of approximately 2.3 m. This is similar to the falconry method of jump-up training.

 As she came in in good body condition, we knew she was able to hunt and kill prey before her accident. All we needed to know now, was whether the wing with the fracture had healed in such a way that she could use it to hunt again.

As our facility lacks big outside aviaries, we chose to use falconry methods to train the kestrel.

This method, if the bird is willing and you have the time and lack an ideal aviary, is the best possible way.

We chose not to put jesses and a creance on the untrained bird, as we believe this is too stressful for the individual and prevents the individual from displaying hunting behaviour. But in the absence of time and resources, this is also an option.

But as we rarely treat birds of prey in our facility, we do have the time for single individuals.

We started the training process by entering her aviary and offering her food only from the trainer’s hand. As she was handfed before, she picked up on that very quickly and by the 2nd session she was already standing on the fist and fed on her prey.

This was repeated a few times so that she knew that she would get food for cooperation with the human. The next step was to offer her prey which was tied to a string, a lure, to imitate prey on the ground.

This was a very quick step as she obviously was used to seeing prey on the ground. In each session, the direct contact was kept to a minimum and was stopped if stress signs were too high.

We then were able to bring her into an indoor flight room, which has, thanks to the old building style, very high ceilings. She stood on the fist for a little treat until we reached the flight room, then she was placed onto a perch. After she was comfortable enough in the new surroundings, the lure with the food was presented to her. After she “caught” the prey, she was brought back into her aviary.

This was now repeated every second day, but her hunting attempts were increased in each session. At first, she just flew to the lure. If she didn’t get it she would land and start from there again. But after a week of training, she was able to fly for longer distances and higher and finally she was able to turn mid-flight and attack. This was the start of the typical hovering of kestrels, which is a very skilful and energy-consuming hunting style.

She was trained continuously with this method until we were satisfied with her skills.

As she was a very fast learner, this did not take long.

If you have the possibility of training in a secure area outside on a creance, this would be a better approach to take, as it probably improves the survival rate even more.

We were able to release our kestrel in a suitable area and due to training, she did not fear the last catch in a towel to free her of the jesses and she was able to enjoy one last meal on the fist before she flew away.

A short video of the release was published by Wildtierhilfe Wien on Youtube

…, then we shall need each other. Part 2

Posted on by R.F. in Wildlife Rahbilitation

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.

But if you tame me… Part 1

Posted on by R.F. in Science, Uncategorized, Wildlife Rahbilitation

Despite the worldwide quarantines and lockdowns, work in wildlife centres has not stopped. Animals still get injured and sick, and now that it is springtime, the first orphaned animals are arriving at our centre. The only difference for us is that we have even fewer resources than before. We have to make sure our volunteers stay healthy and safe. Gloves, face masks and disinfectant are now needed for corona patients, so it is hard to buy them anymore, and as the economy is not very stable in these times, people are not able to donate money.

But our work continues and we do our best to keep it going as professional wildlife centres are needed. We can not expect the knowledge, resources and professionalism of private individuals to take care of injured, sick or orphaned wildlife. Often well-intended acts end in tragedies, for humans and the wild animal.

I already stressed before, that even the quietest wild animal is stressed in human care. We might not see it, hear it or notice it in any way but they are stressed. As wild animals are not domesticated, they are not, even if they are raised by humans, bred and genetically modified to live in captivity and close proximity with humans. Through domestication, humans changed wild animals to be more manageable for human use and to be more suited to learn how to interact and communicate with humans.

As we raise orphaned wildlife regularly in wildlife centres and often, as there are not many foster animal-parents available, these orphans are raised by humans. We all know how fast young animals, across all species, learn and adapt. And sometimes these orphans think of us humans as their parents or kind, especially if they are raised alone and with frequent interactions with humans.

 Imprinting is the term we use in these situations. Konrad Lorenz was one of the first researchers to show the effects of imprinting, and I am sure a lot of you have seen pictures of him with a clutch of geese following him around. Usually, a young animal imprints on their own species, as they see, hear and feel their parents and siblings. This process helps them to know which species is their own kind, which species is safe to interact with, and how their future mate should look, sound, smell and so on. We can differentiate social imprinting and sexual imprinting. A nonhuman animal can be social with its own species and humans but show sexual behaviour, if given a choice, only to its own kind.

When and how this imprinting happens is different in every species. We don’t know much about our wildlife yet, and therefore not how the orphaned animals are affected by being raised in close proximity to humans.

Many centres apply different strategies for preventing the human-imprinting process. Some use hand-puppets in the shape of the parents to feed the young ones, others feed the orphans in darkness.

All rehabilitators usually avoid any close contact and any human voices around the nonhuman animals. It is always preferred to have more than one individual of a particular species, to simulate the presence of siblings if the species allows it (obviously species where only one offspring is raised, would not be used to having siblings around, and it might end in a fight, like a lot of eagles where the older hatchling kills the younger one). But studies suggest that even having a sibling there is not necessarily enough to prevent developing tameness or a positive relationship with the human feeding them, which might lead to sexual imprinting.

Raising an orphaned wildling is quite a science. And still, we don’t know enough to prevent human imprinting and as we lack the ability to recheck our released animals, due to a lack of resources, we can not see if they successfully mate with their own species.

Further studies are needed to determine what is the best approach for raising orphaned wildlife, especially songbirds as here the methods to prevent imprinting are very limited. We can not feed them in the dark, there are too many species for which to have individual puppets and sometimes siblings are not available.

To be continued…

They don’t look stressed…do they?!

Posted on by R.F. in Media, Science, Wildlife Rahbilitation

When I open any of the social media platform apps on my phone, I often see pictures of some wild animal held into the camera with the report or description of how it was ‘saved’ by somebody great. (I know that some clever person wrote this nice algorithm that figures out that I am interested in wildlife in general 😊.) Don’t get me wrong I am happy about any wildlife in need get help. But what we as humans, who live with no real predators to fear, often forget, is that those wild animals are terrified of being picked up, grabbed, held up high into a camera by the world’s most feared predator, us.

I know, I know! Often, they don’t seem to mind, but wildlife is very good at hiding any weakness, as they are desperately debating about the best option, fight or flight?! The handling causes them high-stress levels, which are energy consuming, negative for any healing process and is often totally unnecessary. And then there are the baby animal pictures, yes these are much more relaxed and don’t seem to fear the human (or even worse in some cases, the dog or cat) anymore. That is because they are IMPRINTED!!!

Sorry for shouting there. But this is really a hot topic. Imprinted means that they see the human (cat, dog…) as a social or even a sexual partner. They don’t see them as a threat or a danger. Does that sound like a wild animal to you? Probably not. Often, they cause a lot of problems as they grow up and can’t be released, so those imprints live in captivity which isn’t the goal of wildlife rehabilitation and they take up resources which another animal needs. Even if they are released, they often seek out humans or domestic animals and endanger themselves or others with that kind of behaviour.

A lot of you might wonder “what harm is it if a squirrel is a bit tame and plays with the dogs in the city park or visits a playground?” Well, not all dogs lost their hunting instinct and might use the squirrel as a chew toy and not all mothers appreciate if a squirrel climbs over their toddler and steels the snacks. What if this squirrel gets a fright or a bit too frustrated and bites one of the children there? Not so funny anymore. What to do then, does it need to be removed (which is just a bit of greenwashing for getting killed)? Well, it might be a bit exaggerated on my part now, but it has happened before with hand-raised crows and foxes.

Hopefully, you get my point. The goal of wildlife rehabilitation is to release a healthy animal back into the wild. Healthy includes them being able to find their appropriate food, recognize the proper sexual partner and reproduce and show appropriate fear of dangers, like people, domestic animals, cars, etc.

So why the rant about this? Well, because of more and more social media groups of wildlife ‘rescue’ groups. Especially here in the country, I am working in, we don’t have many big (or even small) wildlife rehabilitation centres. So, a lot of groups, little NGOs form and want to help wildlife. Which is fine, but I want to show that wildlife rehabilitation should mainly be done by professionals, people who have learned the appropriate skills, people who have gone to, and learned from, other wildlife rehabilitation centres,  and ecologists, biologists, vet techs, or veterinarians with special knowledge about wildlife. There are so many things that can go wrong, which in the end will cost the wild animal its life.

So even wild animals don’t show it; they are constantly stressed while they are in care. The wildlife centres I visited have their own strategies to reduce this stress as much as possible. The injured animals are separated in enclosures, designed to keep them safe and give them enough space to feel comfortable. No humans walk by constantly and there is absolutely no contact with domestic animals. There are no loud noises, and with orphaned animals, there are techniques used to prevent them from seeing you as a food source (if they are likely to imprint). Contact is kept to a minimum and for longer procedures animals are sometimes sedated …

Just to mention a few! So, you see, a layperson at home might struggle to offer all that. But not all wildlife rescue places are great either.

We lack the opportunity to build a profession in this sector. We need to improve.

Found on Flckr, despite it might look not as natural, please wear gloves when handling wild animals, for their and your sake
Abcnews.go.com, this squirrel lost all fear from cats, the next step closer is being inside the cat…

Abc.net.au, again, I get that we all need the likes and shares to get more donations, but to stress an animal and risk your safety, is not worth it. And what kind of picture do we share with the public? That foxes are pets? That it is ok to have a wild animal that close to my face?

Veitshoechheim-blog.de, absolut stressed kite held in the camera. If you need to do an exam be quick and choose a location where it is not as stressful. If an animal looks that stressed, I would postpone the exam if possible. At least one of them is wearing leather gloves. Often you see pictures of people handling birds of prey and owls with no safety measurements. Not good to share with the public!

https://www.vin.com/vetzinsight/default.aspx?pid=756&id=5454945 an example in the U.S. that squirrels are not pets and what can happen if you want to release them

https://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/vetrec/172/8/211.full.pdf example about stress in wildlife

https://lafeber.com/vet/basic-wildlife-rehabilitation-triage/ Dr. Schott talks about important considerations in wildlife rehabilitation

https://www.wildtierhilfe-wien.at/wildtierpflege-und-unserioese-webauftritte/ Biologist and Head of a local NGO here in Vienna BSc E. Moser-Gattringer just wrote an article about the topic in german