Wildlife - Rescue And Rehabilitation Of Wildlife

A variety of individuals, groups, and agencies are involved in rescue or rehabilitation of wildlife. Most state wildlife and fish and game agencies operate rehabilitation programs and require private individuals and groups rehabilitating and releasing native wildlife to be licensed. In addition, the USFWS requires federal permits for those rehabilitating migratory bird species.

The HSUS operates the five-acre Cape Wildlife Center in West Barnstable, Massachusetts. The center includes a wildlife rehabilitation facility and a veterinary clinic for injured, sick, and orphaned wild animals. Nearly 1,400 animals received care there in 2004. Although the center is not open to the public, it operates a hotline to answer questions and offer suggestions about ways in which wildlife and humans can coexist.

The Association of Sanctuaries (AOS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1992 to accredit sanctuaries that rescue and care for all kinds of animals, including wild animals. The rescued animals are not used for commercial purposes or allowed to breed in captivity. As of January 2005, forty-four AOS-accredited facilities in the United States rehabilitated and released or provided sanctuary for wild animals that cannot be returned to their natural habitat. These include unwanted exotic pets and circus and zoo animals. One example is the Elephant Sanctuary near Hohenwald, Tennessee. It was founded in 1995 as the country's first natural habitat refuge specifically for endangered Asian and African elephants. The 800-acre sanctuary is surrounded by a 3,000-acre natural buffer. As of January 2005 the sanctuary housed fourteen female elephants.

There are hundreds of other rescue and rehabilitation facilities around the country. Many are nonprofit tax-exempt operations run by individuals or animal groups. The quality of care offered by these facilities depends on the expertise of the staff and the funds available. The HSUS is critical of some of these facilities. In April 2003 HSUS vice president Wayne Pacelle said, "We call them pseudo-sanctuaries. They're primarily engaged in commercial activities while passing themselves off as a nonprofit."

These comments followed a raid on the home of a California couple, Marla Smith and John Weinhart, operating Tiger Rescue, a nonprofit sanctuary for big cats. State and county wildlife authorities found the corpses of thirty adult tigers and sixty-one cubs when they raided the couple's property on April 22, 2003. Thirteen cubs found alive were turned over to the Fund for Animals Wildlife Rehabilitation Center near San Diego. The California Department of Fish and Game had removed ten tiger cubs from Tiger Rescue in November 2002, citing concerns about the animals' welfare. The couple operated a popular roadside zoo in Colton, California, that featured dozens of exotic animals, a petting zoo, and a big cat exhibit.

At a preliminary hearing held in July 2003, a veterinarian testified that some of the dead cubs had starved to death. Authorities said the property was littered with decaying animal corpses. Weinhart and Smith were charged with dozens of crimes, including seventeen felony counts related to allegations of animal cruelty and child endangerment. (The couple's eight-year-old son lived in the house with them.) After numerous postponements the trial got underway in January 2005. Smith pleaded guilty to all felony counts and forty-six misdemeanors involving the mistreatment of animals; Weinhart was convicted in February 2005 of fifty-six of the sixty-one counts of animal and child cruelty that had been brought against him.