Wednesday, Sep. 01, 2010

Wanted: Care for critters

Colorful coffee mugs and tiny office toys are common choices for perking up your cubicle.

Gina Tkach has something more unusual: orphaned baby squirrels.

The newborns need to be fed five times a day, so she tucks them into a fleece-lined plastic bin over a heating pad on her desk at a start-up company in Research Triangle Park, and cares for them on her lunch break.

"It's a lot of work, but the rewards are really awesome," Tkach said.

The North Raleigh resident is a licensed volunteer wildlife rehabilitator, one of about 40 in the area who specialize in stranded infant squirrels. Local nonprofit Wildlife Welfare hopes to find many more like Tkach, and it's looking to people of the Triangle for help.

Fall is always the busy season for squirrel rehabbers, but this year has gotten downright hectic.

The reason is a mystery so far, but Raleigh rehabbers are overwhelmed and frantic for new recruits. Things have gotten so crowded, Wildlife Welfare Executive Direction Tricia Hoover has had to ask for help from neighboring counties.

"We have so many, we can't keep up," Hoover said. "We're now at the point where we're begging people who have done it in the past to come back and help out."

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission website lists contact information for all licensed wildlife rehabilitators in North Carolina. When a local do-gooder rescues an infant squirrel from a sidewalk or a baby bunny from the clutches of a cat, it's one of those rehabbers who often gets the call. Most of them do the work from home. None are paid.

With their wee paws and cute furry noses, volunteering as a surrogate squirrel-parent might not sound like a burden. But it's a tough job that takes a lot of commitment, Hoover said.

"It's not something where you raise it for a couple weeks, then stick it out on a tree," Hoover said. "It goes through a long process."

Becoming a rehabber is a four-step process, Franklin County rehabber Ashley Ostrout said. First and most important is the state permit, without which it is technically illegal to shelter even a baby rabbit, said N.C. Wildlife Resource Commission Permits Supervisor Daron Barnes.

Then Ostrout hands you the Wildlife Welfare manual and sends you to the library with a detailed reading list. After that, you spend time with an experienced rehabber, watching them work with your animal of choice.

When it's time to go solo, you should only take in healthy babies to gain experience at first, rehabber Ruth Bromer said. Save the tough cases - babies with broken bones or severe wounds from cat-attacks - for later. They require more care, and they don't always make it to adulthood.

"That's hard. The first few, I cried every single time," Bromer said. "Now, I try to keep myself from getting too emotional about it."

While children can learn a lot from wildlife rehabilitation, Hoover stresses that it's not a job for kids. No one younger than 18 can get a permit, plus the amount of time and care involved would overwhelm most children and teens.

"There's as much animal laundry during rehab as there is people laundry," Tkach said.

Squirrels are the bane of backyard birdfeeders everywhere, and they are in no danger of extinction. Some homeowners would be happy for the world to be minus a few of their offspring. Rehabbers know this. But their work goes deeper than a simple rescue mission, Ostrout said.

"I think it's important that needless suffering does not take place," Ostrout said. "I can't imagine looking at a little animal and not helping - if they're in need and you have the proper training."

That last part is crucial. Most squirrel rehabbers have stories of babies handed over with their health wrecked after a civilian tried to care for the animal before finally handing them over.

"It's not just a cute thing to do - this is serious," Ostrout said. "There's a life in our hands, and we take that very seriously."

And they are not raising the animals to be pets, Hoover said. The goal is to rear a self-sufficient creature who will be released into the wild when they reach adulthood.

There are always more babies to be rescued after hurricanes or heavy rains, Hoover said, but this year is unprecedented.

"And it's just the beginning of the season. Everybody's so shocked," Hoover said. "And we don't know why it's so busy. It's like somebody opened a gate and they started pouring out."