Jane Stevens, wildlife rehabber

I ask you, Dear Reader, have you ever given a thought to what it would be like to save a baby bat's life? I mean a real baby, eyes still closed and wet with placental fluids. What to feed it - or how to feed it?

Yeah, me too. I'd have thrown in the towel. But not Jane Stevens. I can see her that day back in the '80s when she was given that challenge. She just smiled, scratched her head, smiled again and said, "I'll have to think about this for a bit."

Now, these was the days before Google, you couldn't just sit down and type in "How to feed baby bats," and get 11 responses on the first page like you can today. Jane had to do some really serious head-scratchin'. But in about 10 minutes she had the answer.

Those tiny myotis bats made it to maturity and were released to live out their lives the way they were meant to. In the 50-plus years Jane has been doing rehab, hundreds and hundreds of wild animals have gone on to live a normal life and beget their kind, because Jane cares.

It was early in 1985 when Jane met Kathy Miller, who worked the front office of the old Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife office in Bend. Jane brought home an infant mink someone took to the High Desert Museum thinking it was an otter pup. Needing info on rearing it, she and her husband, Bill - another volunteer on Jane's rehab team - went to visit Kathy for advice. Kathy rehabbed lots of critters brought in by the public, so it was decided she would raise the mink and gave Jane and Bill a cup-full of pine squirrel orphans to rehab instead.

But it was back in the '60s when the rehab bug bit Jane. She reared an orphaned American kestrel (the smallest of our falcons) in Colorado. When Oregon called, she wanted to do bird rehab, so she contacted the Sunriver Nature Center and jumped into working with Jay Bowerman. Jeff Cooney was rehabbing with Jay, and Jeff went on to become a Central Oregon Community College biology teacher and veterinarian and, like Jay, is still doing rehab today with his sidekick, Jannette Bonomo, as High Desert Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation.

The year 1986 found Jane and Bill rehabbing both mammals and birds under Kathy and Jay's tutelage. About 50 animals of all species passed through their little home/clinic that year. Starting a year or so later, Jane got Tom and Lee Means and their daughter Lexi into rehab at their place, and that went on for several years.

Starting in 1987, the total number of birds and mammals increased to between 75 and 100 annually. Then, in 1989, Bill and Jane's rehab volunteers volunteered to help move Jane's operation to a larger home/clinic she and Bill had in Saddleback.

Around 1990, Lynn and Bob Scobee volunteered to take over bird rehab as well as some mammals, and Jane concentrated on mammals. Most years 35 to 50 mammals passed through the clinic. Lynn and Bob ran an extensive rehab operation at their ranch in Alfalfa into the early 2000s.

In the mid 1990s, 11-year-old Katie Ribeca and Sandy Thompson came on board as apprentices until they left for college, where both went into biology and environmental studies.

Dr. Susan Loomis (of Bend) had long been donating veterinary services and supplies to Jay Bowerman's work with birds, and in 1986 took on Jane's wildlife as well. Dr. Little Liedblad (of Sisters Country's Broken Top Veterinary Clinic) hired on at Susan's practice and volunteered to help out. Around 1996, Little took over the wildlife vet work, and has been doing it ever since.

From the late 1980s, Darleen Breeden and her family rehabbed many animals for Jane at their home in Deschutes River Woods. And when the Scobees retired, they took over bird rehab for several years.

In the late 1990s Bill and Jane met Tracy Leonhardy. She took on several species and helped raise and release the bobcats in 1999-2000. (See last week's story in The Nugget, page 8.)

Around 2003, Gary and Kelly Landers joined in with Jane and Bill. Gary helped build their large outdoor enclosures, and they started by rehabbing mammals at home. Soon thereafter, Gary built a raptor rehab facility in Sisters, Wild Wings, which is still placing hawks, eagles, falcons and owls back into the wild, and providing "educational birds" for school programs.

Bill and Jane moved to Sisters Country and retired from rehabbing around 2004. Looking back over the 50+ years they were doing that late-night-up-at-dawn-work, they recall some outstanding species they helped along the Trail of Life, including mink, pine squirrels, river otters, bobcats - a bald eagle who grew a new shoulder socket and eventually flew free - cormorants, flying squirrels, packrats, nighthawks, kingfishers, bats, marmots, badgers, beaver - and a magpie who imitated smoker's cough.