It seemed like a lot of pigeons and doves were coming to us from near where I live in Tempe. While there, I noticed an interesting trend. At the window, you get to see the variety of animals that come to us for care, as well as meet the wonderful people who care enough about wildlife to drive them to our facility. This past week I had the pleasure of spending some time at the intake window, taking in animals that the public brings to us for care. We take seriously the trust you put in us to stay committed to carrying out our primary mission of rehabilitation and release. This is strictly adhered to.Įvery life, wild or not, deserves a chance at freedom to be who they are supposed to be. But, we see no point in taking the life of an animal if its quality of life is good, and it has the tolerance for change. The alternative to a productive and unfettered life would be euthanasia. Even the toughest great horned owl jumps to the job of feeding helpless orphaned baby great horned owls with great success hundreds of times during the season. Luckily they seem, in most cases, hard-wired to raise babies. But, that only works if you have willing foster parents. Each animal learns to be that animal…not the human who tried to raise it alone. No mal-imprinting happens when fostering is used. That is when the foster parent program saves the day…and over the years more animals than I can count have been returned to nature…wild as when they came in. When possible we try to reunite parents with babies, but it is most often just not possible. ( Read more how you can help injured or orphaned wildlife.) In most cases, these are wildlife that have been brought to us by caring individuals throughout our community or called in to be rescued by our rescue and transport teams. These orphans have blown out of nests trees with active nests have been cut down the parent has died, etc. At Liberty Wildlife, they can become foster parents to orphans that are not able to be raised by their parents in the wild. If an animal exhibits the slightest sign of stress or annoyance from the training or the task we ask of it, it is given another choice of jobs. Wildlife is fascinating enough without teaching them “tricks.” The important thing is to show its pertinence to the natural world…to show why it is imperative that we keep a healthy environment. It might be exciting to have an owl fly in between two people, but it certainly will never occur in the wild…so what is the point? In my opinion, the grandeur of the animal is not in what you can train it to do…training unnatural actions isn’t important. In considering the training, we are very consistent that what we portray to the public in our programming is closely similar to what these animals might do, and what guests might see, in the wild. A trained team of handlers sees to their care, enrichment, upkeep and training. They are treated with the utmost respect and are given a consistent and interesting life. If they are suited to handling close proximity to humans, they can go into a training program where they adapt to procedures that keep them safe and healthy. Some of these animals get to learn the skills of being educational ambassadors for their species. If they are too compromised or mal-imprinted when they show up at our door, we give them a choice. Realistically speaking, not all of the wildlife we take in is releasable. In adhering to these values, we hold that wildlife ideally belongs in the wild doing what it was designed to do…find a mate, raise offspring and help keep a balance in the natural world. Our mission has always been and always will be primarily to rehabilitate and release animals that come to us orphaned, injured, or ill that we assess will have a quality of life in the wild. While it is done frequently these days, it completely flies in the face of what we, at Liberty Wildlife, stand for. These birds cannot and will not be released back into the wild, as they are often non-native, “designer”/hybridized animals, or offspring of native captive birds.

It has become trendy for zoos, falconers and independent entertainers to purchase captive-raised wildlife, including birds to either use in falconry or to use as props for entertainment venues and for zoo collections. I just can’t bring myself to watch these. I’ve been encouraged over the past couple of years to watch “Tiger King” and other salacious documentaries about the exploitation of wild animals.

Rehab acorn woodpecker