Wildlife rehabilitation

The idea of wildlife rehabilitation has been with us for many years in Central Oregon. This old writer rehabbed bobcats, turkey vultures, raptors and other wildlife decades ago; Jane and Bill Stevens conducted their operation in Bend for 40 years; and Jane kept her hand in it when she moved into Sisters Country 20 or so years back.

Gary Landers rehabilitates raptors, from eagles to vultures to the smallest falcon we have in this area, the American kestrel. Elise Wolf is doing a splendid job on a variety of birds, from robins to swans, and loves every minute of it. At any one time, she may have a robin in one of her flight cages, or a grebe - or grebes - recovering in her bathtub.

Jeff Conney and his sidekick, Jennifer Bonomo, are running a rehab operation they call High Desert Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation in Bend that's a virtual Noah's Ark. They have an old house where every room is filled with reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds undergoing one repair or another.

Jay Bowerman got started in the Sunriver Nature Center and Observatory in the 1970s, and is still at it today, working with amphibians, raptors and other birds.

Then there's Tracy Leonhardy of Wildside Rehabilitation, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to providing a safe haven for wildlife in need of healing and advocacy in Central Oregon.

At any given time from January to December you may find fawns, raccoons, squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, elk and many other species of wildlife residing at Judy and Tracy's facility.

Leonhardy is a licensed rehabilitator and veterinary technician. All of the volunteer caregivers legally care for wildlife under Tracy's knowledgeable tutelage, and she takes calls for help at any time of day or night and responds to whatever is necessary to meet the animal's needs.

In her own words, this is how she got started: "I remember my very first involvement with wildlife rescue and release. My father was driving home late one rainy night and found a golden eagle walking up the middle of the road. The poor bird was drenched to the skin and shivering, and my dad wrapped it in his coat and brought it home with him.

"We kept it warm and force-fed it chicken broth the first few days we had it. Mom suspected that it had pneumonia. It coughed up mucus and we were sure it was going to die, but finally, we were able to locate a local wildlife rehabilitator named Jay Bowerman.

"Jay was starting what is now the Sunriver Nature Center & Observatory but he didn't have any cages to put the eagle in. He coached us on how to care for it, and more importantly, how to handle it! My mother and I patiently fed the eagle, and to our complete surprise, the eagle survived! She lived with us for nearly two months before she was strong enough to fly away.

"The day we released her was a warm sunny day. My mom had hooded the eagle with her own stocking cap. I climbed up to the top of a big rock out-cropping, and my dad carefully passed the eagle up to me, and Dad climbed up behind us. He pulled Mom's cap off of the eagle's head and I released her.

"The eagle looked directly at my father, then at me, making direct eye contact for a second, then took two hopping steps and with one hard down stroke of her wings, she was off! I felt such tremendous joy watching that eagle soar away. I felt as though I was a part of something magical. Well, that was it! I was in love with caring for wildlife!"

And now she has a partner, Judy Niedzwiecke (pronounced Nezwick) to help her enjoy - and work with - a wider variety of mammals, from mule deer fawns and raccoons to rabbits.

Taking care of a mule deer fawn is just like caring for a human infant, but a lot more work - a fawn has long legs with sharp hooves, and is about as coordinated as a drunken sailor on a Saturday night. The fawn will be bottle-fed milk replacer formula (20 pounds in a box and $69 a pop) every two hours around the clock. At about two months the milk is decreased and fed two times a day.

Baby raccoons are another handful; three tiny babies were delivered to Wildside Rehab by construction workers who found the mom dead on the road and the newborn babies inside a wall of the old house.

If you think you would like to become involved in caring for and seeing wildlife released back into the wild, give Judy a call at 541-389-6012, and if you want to dedicate some funds toward the work Wildside is doing, it's tax-deductible (Tax ID Number 26-3589400).