r/WildlifeRehab • u/hyperpug • Sep 20 '24
Newly licensed rehabber! Education
Hi everyone!
I just got my license today and can’t wait to help out some wildlife. I have been fostering critical neonatal kittens for years so I have experience caring for baby orphaned mammals, but would love any tips on how to get started.
Are there certain species that are “easier” than others? I think I’ve read that cottontail can be released at like 5-6 weeks old while squirrels will need to stay inside for a bit longer. How about birds?
I am in touch with some local rehabbers who will guide me when I get my first case, but they are all super busy right now so I don’t want to bombard them with all of my questions. Any tips/advice for a newbie would be greatly appreciated!!
3
u/BleatingHart Sep 21 '24
I would echo others’ sentiment that you really, really, really, really should get some supervised hands-on experience before going it on your own. I’m actually shocked that that isn’t a requirement to get a license in your state. Even if you have a lot of experience with domestic animal care and rehabilitation, wildlife in a whole different ballgame. Domestic animal care is a great foundation but there will be so many things that you don’t know you don’t know when it comes to wildlife. Having someone correct those inevitable mistakes early on your career will save a great deal of difficulty and heartache down the road.
Make sure you have a wildlife-licensed vet. You will be needing them a lot.
One big thing you’re going to have to un-train yourself on is how you interact with your patients. With kittens, you want to love on them and socialize them and, for many of us, that’s just instinctual. That is exactly what you do NOT want to do with wildlife. You’ll be setting them up for failure if you make these animals feel affection for or even just too comfortable with humans or pets. You have to keep all your interactions with them, even the babies, pretty clinical. It’s a hard habit to break and you have to fight the urge to show them love the way you know how, but setting them up to be truly wild is the most loving thing you can do for them.
IWRC’s Minimum Standards is an essential book. In addition to lots of protocol, it will show you the enclosure size and setups required for each species in each phase of their rehab journey. Someone else recommended the NWRA and IWRC classes and symposiums, like their Basic Wildlife Rehab course. I second that. Some are online, others are in person. “Wildlife Mammal Babies: The First 24 hours” has some super basic info but I have found that it makes a good jumping-off point to lead you in the right direction to do further research.
I also echo others’ suggestions that opossum or squirrels are probably a good place to begin, though opossum can be a little tricky with the required tube-feeding early on. It’s definitely worth having someone give you hands-on instruction for tube-feeding before attempting. Also, the pre-release enclosures might need to be pretty large for both those species (the Minimum Standards book has that info). Cottontails are notoriously tricky and have a very high mortality rate, so they might be a species to attempt in future. I’d recommend starting with 1 species for now and expand as you feel comfortable.
Again, I highly recommend that you spend at least a little bit of time working under an experienced rehabber, even if just a couple days a week for a couple months, just to get your bearings. This work can get pretty overwhelming and disorienting at times. You’ll find you’re in a better position if you aren’t trying to figure the basics out all on your own. Plus, building a solid relationship with another local rehabber goes a long way. Networking and sharing info/ technique/ advice is an important tool in this work and it’s comforting to have someone you trust to bounce ideas off of when you’re up against a difficult or baffling case.
Best of luck on your rehab journey!