>>The Wildlife Center of Virginia is one of the world's leading teaching and research hospitals for wildlife and conservation medicine, providing state-of-the-art veterinary care for more than 3000 wild animals each year.
The center draws on lessons learned from each patient admitted to teach the world to care about and care for wildlife and the environment.
>>Funding for Untamed is made possible by... (birds chirping) (water rippling) (dramatic music) >>The definition of wildlife rehabilitation is the provision of temporary care to sick, injured, orphaned, or displaced wildlife in order to restore them to health, able to return to the wild, and function normally in their natural habitat.
Now, that seems pretty straightforward, but a number of years ago, we set out to figure out just how many people were involved in this field of endeavor, and how many animals were affected by their efforts.
So we sent out a survey to all 50 state wildlife agencies and to the various federal agencies that issue permits for one aspect or another of wildlife rehabilitation.
What we found was pretty surprising.
Together, these agencies issue nearly 5,000 wildlife rehabilitation permits of one type or another for the care of nearly a half million wild animals.
Here at the Wildlife Center of Virginia, of that half million animals in care, our share is about 3,500 patients a year.
But we're an emergency room.
We're a trauma center.
Our very sophisticated facility gets the worst of the worst, the most severely injured animals, the sickest animals, the ones that have been poisoned that need the most intensive therapy if they're to survive.
And sadly, like every other wildlife care facility across the country, we can't save them all.
Some come in with injuries that are just so catastrophic or amputations that are irreparable.
We simply cannot save the animal.
Their illness may be so infectious we dare not return them to the wild.
And in those cases, if they don't just die from their injury outright, in many cases, we have to choose euthanasia.
We take their lives.
We end it humanely to end their suffering and prevent a life of chronic pain and disability.
But for a few of the animals, there is yet another option.
There is the opportunity for animals that qualify, physically and behaviorally, to take on a new role in life.
The role of education ambassador.
These education ambassadors play a critical role in conveying conservation messages.
Why?
Because they actually put a face on environmental problems, like poisoning, illegal activity, automobile collisions, collisions with human structures like power lines or buildings.
They are the actual victims of these real problems.
And in their regal silence, they can be very articulate and compelling in their message.
Now, we have obligations to these ambassadors, ethical and professional obligations.
We have to be sure when we choose them that they are physically able to meet the demands and that their original injury is not going to provide them chronic pain throughout their life in captivity.
We have to be sure their temperament is appropriate for life in captivity, but also to be around a number of people, perhaps large audiences or crowds.
And finally, they have to be able to accept the training that is necessary so that their behavior in public is appropriate, both for their safety and the safety of their handler, but also for the safety of the public.
And that's a very careful screening process.
Now, when they come through, we don't automatically say, simply because it's beautiful, it joins the ambassador program.
It has to fit in with our plan.
And that's quite an involved process.
(gentle music) >>Animal welfare is a very complex subject.
You think it's maybe easy because most people would say, I know good welfare when I see it or when I don't see it.
But in reality, it is a complex subject, and there are many definitions out there.
But the one that we feel fits wildlife rehabilitation and actually, and the ambassador animal world is a definition from the World Organization for Animal Health.
And basically, what that definition says is we wanna take a look at the animal and how well is it coping in the situation that it's living.
Now, of course with animals and rehabilitation, the goal is to get those animals released to the wild.
So we wanna keep improving that welfare until that bird can fly just like it's wild counterparts, and can forge normally and has everything it needs to be able to be released to the wild.
Now, birds or other animals that are in captivity to be an ambassador animal, those animal welfare pieces are lifelong.
In 1965 or in the 1960s, a commission was put together in the United Kingdom, and it was basically for farm animals.
And what they came up with was what is now known as the five freedoms.
And so these are the freedoms from thirst and hunger.
These are the freedoms from or freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain like injury or disease, freedom to express natural behaviors, and the freedom from fear and distress.
And those were revolutionary at the time.
But if you think about how these were set up, it was to kind of remove negatives from a situation.
So those held for a very long time, but in the 1990s, some professors came together and they said, you know, this this is taking away negatives, but we also wanna add some positive to the situation.
So now, you have something that we call the five domains, which still encompasses all the five freedoms.
And you can tell when I tell you what their names are, it's nutrition, it's environment, health, behavior, and then the overwriting one that all of those influence is the mental state.
So they rearrange things a little bit, but the five freedoms are encompassed in those five domains, but we've also added positives.
So it's not just alleviating thirst and hunger.
We're gonna make sure that the nutrition is correct for that particular animal, right?
We're gonna present water in a way that would be a natural way for that animal to get water in the wild.
Those are the types of positive that we can add.
But for humans, it's easier to remember things in threes.
So there is another thing that we like to use called the three circles framework, or three spheres framework.
And what this does is it also encompass all the five domains, but it's only three things you have to really remember.
And it's mind or affective states, we call it.
It's body that encompasses of course the health from disease and things like that.
And then the natural world, or call it nature if you want.
And that encompasses the behaviors and setting up the enclosure for natural behaviors and those kinds of things.
The Wildlife Educators Code of Ethics was developed by the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association.
And they were patterned after the Wildlife Rehabilitators Code of Ethics that was developed by the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association and the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council.
But the NWRA, the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association, developed the Wildlife Code of Ethics for Educators because so many animals that are permanently injured in wildlife rehabilitation facilities are transferred to education facilities.
So these guidelines are just that, they're guidelines.
They talk about being professional.
They talk about that you have to give the highest care possible to the animals that you have.
You have to make sure that you are working in best practices and you are continually learning how to be a better trainer, how to be a better manager, how to present this animal for education purposes.
And the fact that these animals are supposed to be used for education.
(upbeat music) >>In order for a wild animal to be released, it needs to be able to be a fully-functional member of its population.
With that in mind, release considerations are gonna vary species to species.
Things we commonly see that make animals non-releasable are things such as ocular injuries or eye injuries and behavioral abnormalities.
In order to keep a wild animal as an education ambassador, you'll need state permits and sometimes federal permits from the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service depending on the species you're trying to keep.
It's really important to keep in mind that these animals must be used for educational purposes.
They cannot be used for commercial purposes and are not allowed to be touched or come into contact with members of the public.
There are some specific medical issues or injuries that prohibit you from keeping an animal as an education ambassador.
Oftentimes, these are injuries that are going to result in the animal having a poor quality of life and poor welfare in captivity.
For example, if an animal is completely blind and can't navigate its enclosure safely to find food and water, that animal will not have a good quality of life in captivity and is also prohibited from being kept as a captive animal.
Another example of an animal that would be prohibited to be kept as an animal in captivity as well as an animal that would not be a good choice for an education ambassador would be a bird with a severe wing amputation.
Birds require their wings for balance and to navigate their enclosure.
And when one wing is missing, their balance is severely thrown off and they just don't thrive.
If an animal is going to be selected as an education ambassador and placed in captivity, we wanna make sure that whatever injury or disability it has is not going to lead to chronic pain for that animal for the rest of its life.
We also wanna make sure that that animal can live in captivity, navigate its enclosure, eat and drink in a pain-free and low stress way.
Before assessing if an animal is a good candidate to become an education ambassador, all its medical treatment needs to be finished and every avenue for release needs to be explored.
In some instances, this can take months.
Signs of pain and injury in our wildlife species can be incredibly subtle as they've evolved over millions of years to hide any sign of weakness or pain.
When assessing if an education ambassador is in pain, we need to rely very closely on those that work with the animals on a day-to-day basis to pick up any subtle changes in behavior that could indicate that animal is not feeling 100%.
When you agree to take on an education ambassador, you're agreeing to care for that animal for the rest of its life.
That includes all future husbandry for that animal.
So feeding and cleaning of that animal as well as all future medical care of that animal.
At the Wildlife Center of Virginia, we do annual or biannual exams on all our education ambassadors to monitor their general health status.
These exams include blood work, full x-rays, vaccinations depending on the species, as well as beacon nail trims.
>>Having our veterinarians involved in the selection of our wildlife ambassadors is critically important.
We need to be sure that the original injury, if that's what brought them to us, has healed sufficiently to enable this animal to move on to the next phase of its life.
We need to be sure that that injury will not be a source of chronic pain for the animal as it lives in captivity and goes through its activities in the future.
The animal must have the ability to learn and demonstrate appropriate behaviors, both for the safety of the animal and the safety of the handler.
They can include behaviors like getting in and out of the crate easily and voluntarily, not being frightened by movement in the front row of the audience, and simply being able to handle the display, the exposure to other people.
Now, the individuals and organizations that select these ambassadors, they too need a plan.
They need to evaluate their capacity to provide specialized housing for the ambassador, depending on its species, specialized care and the sustainability, because some of these animals can live for decades.
(gentle music) >>Many organizations that have education ambassadors have some sort of collection plan.
These plans offer guidance on the types of animals that an organization may use in their educational programming, as well as the number of animals that they can care for.
So the plans really offer some good baseline on decision-making when people are deciding if they want to add a new member of the team.
In the wildlife center's case, our collection plan generally states that for the most part, we're going to use wildlife that is native to Virginia.
And at any given time, we have about two dozen animal ambassadors.
We like to have a variety of species for our programming.
So we have birds, mammals, and reptiles, but beyond that, we do have some species specific requirements.
So for our bird species, we like to use birds of prey.
There are certainly many native birds in Virginia, but we've opted not to use songbirds or waterfowl just because of the types of housing we have available.
And also for handling requirements that we have for our programs.
So we really just focus on the raptors.
For the mammal species that we have, we only have Virginia opossums because we feel that's a species that's easy to handle, easily seen on programs.
And in Virginia, they are not a high-risk rabies species.
For our reptile ambassadors, we have a variety of non-venomous snake species and box turtles.
While Virginia is home to a variety of aquatic turtle species, that's a good example of the type of husbandry that we feel we don't have to offer these animals for long-term.
So that's why painted turtles and snapping turtles are not a part of our collection plan.
Another significant goal of our collection plan is that all of our ambassadors be comfortable with going offsite for programs with us, which means they need to be comfortable leaving their enclosure and being in front of people.
So because we're not a nature center that's open to the public, we don't have display-only animals.
While our collection plan offers some good basic guidelines for us, it still can and should evolve over time.
As we learn more about animal welfare and preferred training techniques and methods, we're better able to make decisions for animals that may be potential ambassadors for us.
By drawing from our knowledge of natural history, we're better able to make decisions about the sorts of species that we'll probably have an easier time adjusting to life as an education ambassador.
We also recognize that the age of an animal can definitely play into their success or not.
Younger animals are generally going to have an easier time adjusting to life in captivity.
We know that if a red-tailed hawk has been out in the wild for 10 years or more, they're probably gonna have a hard time transitioning to life in an enclosure and in close proximity with people, at least opposed to a young red-tailed hawk that's three months old and has never had an independent life and can continue to grow up around people.
So that's a really good example of one part of our collection plan that has changed in recent years.
And we now only accept young-of-the-year raptors and mammals to our team.
When our veterinarians have a young-of-the-year patient that can't go back to the wild, but they've determined that the animal's injury is stable and not going to cause additional problems and making sure that that animal is not in pain, then we can assess if we have a spot open in our collection for that particular species.
And then the outreach team will step in to see if we can make a behavioral assessment.
We really strongly feel that if we're asking an animal to be in captivity for the rest of its life, then we really need to be making good decisions for that animal every step of the way.
At the wildlife center, we use operant conditioning as a training technique.
So this is a method of behavioral training in which the animal, which is the operator in this case, learns to associate a behavior with a significant event.
So for example, a red-tailed hawk learns that if he steps up on a handler's presented glove, then he'll get a tasty mouse snack.
And we're able to use operant conditioning methods to train a good variety of behaviors from stepping up on the glove to entering a crate, leaving the enclosure and even doing some basic medical procedures like foot checks and nail trims.
By using this method of training, we're able to start making a good assessment as to whether or not this animal could be a good fit for our team.
It does take some time.
And the length of time that it takes is always up to that individual animal, but the more behaviors we achieve, we are able to start making some moves toward adding them to the team.
Then we know that we have selected a new team member.
And from that point, we just have to make it official.
Some of the last steps to making an ambassador official is to add them to our permits and then to give them a name.
Naming an animal is always the really fun part of adding a new team member.
But it's one that we really hold in reserve until the very end.
Sometimes, it's tempting to name an animal earlier in the process, but for us, it's that sign that they're truly here and truly going to be with us for the rest of their lives.
(gentle music) >>The education ambassadors at the center help us to achieve one of our biggest goals as an organization.
And that would be teaching the world to care about wildlife and the environment.
Many of the educational topics that we include during presentations or during regular communications, things like not littering, things like not keeping wildlife as pets, things like protecting habitats, those are, well, they're big issues.
And they can be a little difficult for some audience members to fully grasp.
One of the biggest benefits of these ambassadors is that they take those big issues that are happening on a nationwide or even a global scale and they make them personal.
They make them real and concrete.
Many of the education ambassadors have stories or backgrounds that when we share them with people, it impacts their species as a whole in the wild.
For example, Ruby, the red-tailed hawk, she was hit by a car.
She lost an eye due to that impact.
She'll never be wild again.
However, we're pretty sure that she was spending time near that dangerous roadway in the first place because someone carelessly left litter or food waste along that roadway, she was hunting, and that's how the car impact occurred.
When people hear her story, they understand that littering can harm wildlife in some pretty serious ways.
If someone takes that message away and never litters ever again in their entire life, that's great, but that doesn't change Ruby's life.
Ruby will live with us at the center for the rest of her days.
However, by taking that message and acting, we know that that animal's story can help to protect wildlife everywhere.
The education opossums at the wildlife center are absolutely some of my favorite animals to feature during programs and presentations, because in my opinion, they are the underdogs when it comes to native Virginia wildlife.
If you were to ask the average person to think about an animal they view as majestic or charismatic or significant or important in some way, chances are people will answer bald eagles, black bears, white-tailed deer.
Opossums are pretty down low on the list for most people.
However, they are incredibly important, not only in our ecosystems, but as scavengers, they help to minimize the risk of harmful diseases being transmitted to not only other animals but other humans as well.
When we take education ambassadors to schools or libraries or special events, one of my favorite parts about that interaction is having the chance to see people's faces light up when they see these animals for the first time in person.
Because most of us, if we grew up in this area, we're at least familiar with what animals live around us, but some of the species that are a part of our education ambassador team are species that may typically avoid humans, if at all possible.
Maybe they're animals that are nocturnal and primarily active after the sun goes down.
For those species to give people the chance to see them and meet them in person for sometimes the very first time in their lives is a really special moment.
When it comes to education and outreach, we know that one of the most meaningful and effective methods is when we can educate and form a personal connection with our audience members.
Many times, these big issues that we're talking about are happening on a grand scale.
And it can be a little difficult for people to feel like their individual actions make much of a difference, but by featuring these education animals in programs, by sharing their stories online, we are able to make a personal connection between these great big ideas and that one single person in the audience.
If even just one person takes action or feels like their behaviors can make a difference for even one wild animal, that's how we know we've succeeded.
>>Unfortunately, not all non-releasable wildlife are destined to become wildlife ambassadors and have a role in educational programming.
But for those animals that are chosen, they can have a profound impact on the public's awareness of environmental issues and their motivation and indeed inspiration to get involved in solving environmental problems.
Now, there are things that you can do to support these wildlife ambassador programs.
One of the simple things is to contact your local nature center or wildlife rehabilitation center that may have a live wildlife ambassador program.
And if they have a program to adopt these animals, you can become a regular supporter and underwrite the care of the animal and the cost of delivering these compelling education messages.
Now, another thing you can do is to sponsor one of these ambassador programs in a venue in your community.
Maybe your local schools, where they are especially popular, or in a local library, or in any other setting where the public can come face to face with these wonderful animals.
Even sponsorship of an online program can reach many people.
Now, in addition to the actual sponsorship of programs, you should attend the programs and bring people with you.
Go meet these animals face to face for yourself, but introduce others to the compelling stories and the majestic animals that are delivering this conservation message.
Education ambassadors can truly touch and change people's lives.
And by introducing others to these animals, you too can play a role.
>>Funding for Untamed is made possible by... (birds chirping) (water rippling) (dramatic music)
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