Sleepy owl found resting among items on a New York antique store shelf
Sleepy owl found resting among items on a New York antique store shelf
“Excuse me, I found this, but it doesn’t have a sticker… Will you take $15?”
I always worry when they just toss the animals back into nature instead of calling a rehabber first. Without knowing how long it’s been stuck inside, they don’t know if it’s dehydrated or injured, so it might but be able to properly hunt or protect itself.
It’s an adult, and a person shouldn’t ever really be able to lay hands on a healthy wild owl.
If you ever find an animal, a call to your local rehab can tell you what to do to ensure the best chance of the animal’s safety and success.
I have nothing bad to say about state wildlife employees, but their mission is not necessarily always the same as that of a rehab clinic.
They play a role in certifying and regulating what we do at a rehab, but from my understanding they are there to see nature take its course while not having negative impacts to the citizens of the state. Rehabbers are here to save every animal possible.
This causes some people to find us anywhere from harmless to annoying to seeing us as interfering with nature. It’s personal and political like any other matter once you dig down enough. But a rehab’s job is to save every animal life that we legally can, and I think that difference is significant in certain scenarios.
Maybe the best comparison I can give is how a city pound or SPCA will help rehome some animals vs a no-kill cat or dog specific rescue that will try to save every animal they take. They’re not bad, they’re still helping, but they have a different mission.