Photo Essay

With Project Wildlife receiving over 300 different species of birds, baby season (spring and summer) seems to have that bulk of the intake. The most common species of bird I’ve seen throughout my experience are pigeons and doves. When baby birds like this pigeon come in no more then a couple weeks old, the volunteers then step in to help tube feed and give it the necessities he or she needs to then be raised here, hopefully to soon be released back into the wild. Baby season has a process of getting ready for by setting up numerous cages and incubators, taking on more volunteers, and receiving more supplies. This is because there is no specific planned day baby birds start arriving; they usually are brought in by the public unexpectedly and frequently. Here at the care center we set up rows of cages with newspaper already laid down inside of them to be prepared for the unexpected.

Rabbits or the Desert cottontail are a common mammal that arrives at the care center. Throughout my internship I am currently creating a rabbit protocol for 2009. This protocol documents how many rabbits end up expired or euthanized, along with how many get released back into the wild or go to home care. Any cottontail that comes in under 35 grams has to be automatically euthanized based on past protocols where rabbits under that weight rarely survived. Project Wildlife is trying to figure out what more they can do to increase the survival rate of these animals. A lot of the desert cottontails that come in have been fatality injured by cats or dogs. In some cases when a mother rabbit leaves her nest to go find food for the day, people pick up the babies not realizing the mother has only left temporarily. Project Wildlife tries to do whatever possible to care for these sensitive mammals.

Project Wildlife gets a handful of raptors (birds of prey) in as well. Red Shoulder hawks along with Red Tail hawks are a typical species of bird taken in. One experience I encountered during my internship involved giving the red tail hawk (above) fluids because he was partially dehydrated. When animals are under stress or in shock they tend to not eat or drink. The staff would then tube feed or hydrate the animal by administering fluids. Keeping noise levels down and limiting “peaking” or visiting in on an animal helps eliminate some of that stress. Project Wildlife is currently trying to set up an (intensive care unit) ICU medical room. This room would be designed for raptors to be away from people and stress the main room displays. Once these raptors are ready to be released back into the wild, they are taken back to the same zip code they were originally from because it is the familiar area they once lived.

While Project Wildlife is generally open to the public, there is a process for taking in animals 24 hours a day. Even when project wildlife is closed there is a drop off station where you can take the wildlife to. This station is equipped with heating pads, crates, and blankets until they reopen again at 8:00 AM. Every animal that we receive gets a special card that displays information where they were found, their species type, and other examination notes. This helps the staff and volunteers identify each animal and what specific needs are required for their care. We use a computer system called ARK that stores the information data from these cards into numerous files. ARK requires the species to be in Latin and can pull up many species at a time creating lists. This is very helpful when it comes to collecting data and gathering information for protocols.

“Project Wildlife is all donation funded, we do receive a few grants, but don’t receive any federal or state funding, its all from private donors and citizens” replied Marci Danielson the registered veterinary technician at Project Wildlife. Since Project Wildlife is a non-profit organization, most of the supplies like medicine, food, and medical supplies are donated from vet offices and the public. The private donors or grants project wildlife receives are usually from small offices or stores. In some cases they even receive grants from the public. This non-profit organization is permitted by the California fish and game, U.S fish and wildlife, and the U.S departments of agriculture to be able to handle and care for these wild animals. Without these special permits it is illegal to rehabilitate or care for any type of wildlife. Learn more about Project Wildlife by going to http://projectwildlife.org/ to see what you can do to help the wildlife of San Diego.