Help rescue an animal: Wildlife rehab centre to host first-ever training seminar for new volunteers
Prairie Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre seminar set for Wednesday night at St. Vital Park in Winnipeg
A Manitoba wildlife rescue centre is hosting its first-ever training seminar Wednesday night to round up new recruits who can help them help animals.
The Prairie Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre is a volunteer-run organization that finds, rescues and rehabilitates injured animals with the goal of getting them back to the wild.
"We have a lot of calls that come through about injured animals throughout the city, or even in rural areas," said Lisa Tretiak, president of the non-profit.
"It would be great to have people who are able to help us out in a time when the animal may be in a dangerous situation, like on the road, or just a way for someone to go check out the animal to make sure that maybe it does need to come in to rehab, or if it's healthy and it's fine, it can be left alone."
Tretiak said the centre is in the midst of its busiest season as calls pour in about injured or abandoned young animals.
"This is where we are getting lots of different calls about baby animals, and in particular right now is all the baby ducklings and goslings," Tretiak said. "Soon we'll get lots of baby bird calls."
The Wednesday seminar will focus on how to capture and transport non-dangerous animals.
"We're going to be talking about songbirds or even small, baby mammals that would not have any potential diseases, so we're not going to be giving instructions on how to catch a coyote or something a little bit more aggressive," Tretiak said.
"We want to sort of give them the tips and techniques of things that [they] may find, especially in the city, that are non-dangerous that they can easily use with gardening gloves and a blanket."
Tretiak shared a few tips for people who are interested in helping out.
Be prepared
If you want to make a rescue successful, Tretiak said you should start with good planning. All rescuers should keep a few basics at the ready, including gloves, blankets and boxes — lots of boxes.
"Usually we recommend to our volunteers [to] have a variety of boxes available. You do not want to have really large boxes for a very tiny little bird," Tretiak said.
"So people will keep shoe boxes on hand in their home, or even have some other boxes that are completely unfolded, that take up very little room inside the trunk of your car and you won't even notice that they're there, but they'll come in handy when you do go out for a rescue and have that available."
It's smart to keep supplies in your vehicle, Tretiak said, so you can respond to an animal you find on the move or be ready to go at a moment's notice.
Use your surroundings
An injured animal might not be immobilized, and could be able to scoot away from would-be rescuers. To round them up safely, Tretiak said you should have a plan for how to corral them into a box. While you're figuring that out, make sure to keep an eye on your surroundings and potential dangers.
"We always want to make sure that they're understanding of what [are] the dangers right now where they're at, what's the situation," Tretiak said.
"We really encourage people not to approach towards roads … we're trying to gear the animal towards the side of a building or wall or fence, somewhere that you can use that as a part of your plan to capture it.
"It's better to sort of aim it that way and walk so that you're encouraging it to walk towards that side than to have it going into a big open field where you're going to be wandering for quite a long time, because some birds can walk for a very long distance and it's going to be very exhausting for everyone."
Touching OK, but resist the urge to cuddle
Some of the most common concerns Tretiak hears are worries about harming the animal instead of helping.
Especially when it comes to birds, Tretiak said many rescuers are concerned they'll hurt the animal if they pick it up to move it. But she said that's actually harder to do than you might think.
"These little guys are actually quite strong, and it's really hard to actually add more injuries. Some of them have been hit by cars and all they have is a minor broken bone," she said. "So really, for us to pick them up or a person to pick them up, they're not going to do more injury to them."
The other big worry is that by rescuing a baby bird, you'll leave your scent on the animal and its parents will reject it later. Tretiak said that's a myth.
"We really want to have people help us placing baby birds back with their parents, because the parents cannot smell human scent," she said. "So we really want to make sure that we're doing the best job and getting them back to their natural parents."
But that doesn't mean you should be snuggling up to the little ones. Most animal parents aren't big cuddlers, and babies don't necessarily interpret snuggles from a giant stranger as comforting.
"If you think about it, wild animals don't cuddle their babies. Most of them spend little time with their young. They're either out going to go find food or they're just staying away just to not attract predators to their nest," Tretiak said.
"A lot of people assume, 'Well, I'm going to cuddle it, they're going to understand that I'm trying to help it.' These animals, they don't get that. They actually think you're going to eat them. So the more that they stay still is not because they're getting used to their touch, it's that they're just frightened so much that they're staying still."
Don't stress out the animal
You've got the animal in a box, you've got the box in your vehicle, and you're ready to take the animal to the centre for care. While you're on the road, take a few precautions so you don't add undue stress.
"Even the transport is really critical for these animals," Tretiak said.
"So playing the radio and talking loud with your passenger is actually very stressful on the animal. If you have kids or even pets along, we really recommend that you leave the pets at home. With the kids, you know, try to encourage them to be quieter and whisper, because all those additional noises are stressful on the animal."
Not sure? Snap a photo
If you aren't sure if an animal is in distress, Tretiak said a good bet is to take a photo and send it to the pros.
"Sometimes, people report something on their way to work and we don't know if it's still in that same area or if it does need to be rescued," she said.
"So even if we can get a volunteer to go out to that scenario and take a picture and send it to us by text or even by email, we can have a look in the picture to say, 'No, no this is normal,' or, 'Yes, this does look like it's injured, and want to bring it to us?'"
The centre's free seminar on how to rescue and transport non-dangerous animals is set for Wednesday at 7 p.m. It will be hosted in the building beside the duck pond in St. Vital Park in Winnipeg.
You don't have to pre-register, but organizers ask you show up right on time.
With files from Janice Grant and Marcy Markusa