The Rehabilitators Behind The Rescuing
WARSAW — Wildlife rescuing is seen as a noble act done by people with a good heart and the patience to nurture every creature back to health. The reality is wildlife rehabilitators go into the job with soft optimistic expectations only to be hardened over time through harsh cases and people with careless attitudes and harmful intentions.
It isn’t glorious work, but that doesn’t stop rehabbers from doing their best to heal animals.
Rehabbing is beyond a full-time job, sometimes demanding round the clock feeding while taking care of the multiple animals. Launda Ewell, Pierceton, Angela Abbott, Columbia City, and Rachel Eppert, Larwill, all work together in rescuing wildlife throughout the area while supporting and assisting one another.
The work done is nonprofit but prevents them from accepting monetary donations. Relying heavily on supply-based donations, much of their own money goes toward the animals’ needs. A lot of times it’s people who cause the most problems for rehabbers — whether they don’t understand the animal or the ways animals must be handled.
That lack of understanding can lead to problems wasting the rehabber’s time when there’s no harm in simply asking about the situation. Other times rehabbers are called for situations when they aren’t needed, such as a raccoon in the attic. There’s a vast difference between animal control and rescuing.
Rehabbers run into a multitude of challenges — misinformed people thinking a wild animal can be a pet, the Department of Natural Resources constantly changing rules and regulations, no available space for animals to be released in and people picking up a wild animal when it isn’t necessary.
“Sometimes the best thing you can do is leave the animal alone,” expressed Abbott. “The mother does have to go off to eat and have her time, so if a baby is by itself that doesn’t mean it’s an orphan. It’s also not true that if you touch a baby, then mother won’t take it back. The mother’s instinct is strong.”
It’s impossible to save every animal. Understanding the circle of life following its natural course is important for rehabbers, otherwise they wouldn’t last long in their work. Unfortunately there are people who try to force rehabbers to take in animals beyond their limit by threatening to hurt the animal. They’ve also interacted with the kind of people who have snuck onto their property to try and “set free” all the animals, causing more problems.
“Have as much compassion for the rehabber as you do for the animals,” stated Ewell. “It’s difficult. It’s awful when you’re trying your hardest only to have someone be mean to you. It can be demoralizing when we’re doing all we can.”
The job can be gritty but as natural healers, Ewell, Abbott and Eppert feel rescuing and rehabilitating is what they’re here for. Being a healer, seeing the need to rescue and loving animals is what drives them. By networking and creating a close-knit group, they can do almost anything.
“We’re human beings, not machines. We can only take in so many animals and it quickly gets overwhelming,” commented Eppert, who holds a full-time job while rescuing. “There’s a genuine love for the animals — that’s why you do it, but you should almost always leave things up to nature. By working together, we can save quite a few things without losing ourselves.”