Paws 'N Claws
News from All Things Wild Rehabilitation, Inc.
March 2018 Volume 4, Issue 2
Our numbers for 2017 are in! Our volunteers rehabilitated over 800 animals last year. This included:
1 armadillo
1 bobcat
1 prairie dog
2 coyotes
2 owls
8 foxes
12 small rodents
25 skunks
34 fawns
107 raccoons
114 cottontails
171 squirrels
177 opossums
238 songbirds
doves
cardinals
killdeers
blue jays
and more!
Amplify Austin is an Austin-area day of giving. Last year, ATW raised over $8,000, all of which went to purchase formula and other supplies for wild animals. This year, Amplify Austin will be from 6 pm on Thursday, March 1, until 6 pm on Friday, March 2. You can donate during the event, or schedule your donation today.
Another way to help is to create your own Fundraiser Campaign for ATW. After you create your campaign page, you can share it with your family and friends, which will help raise more funds to help rehabilitate sick, injured, and orphaned Central Texas wild birds and animals. You have until 5 pm on Wednesday, February 28, to create your page so do it today!
Budgie T. is preparing 2 juvenile raccoons for release.
Leanne D. took in an opossum and a squirrel.
Kim F. is caring for 4 squirrels.
Natalie H. is rehabilitating 2 great horned owls, a screech owl, and a red-tailed hawk.
Helen L. took in 9 squirrels, 8 cottontail rabbits, 6 songbirds, and a rat.
Karen O. released 2 raccoons and is continuing to care for non-releasable raccoons.
Brooke W. released 4 raccoons.
What You Missed!
January 13: Sarah Robertson, an aquatic biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s River Studies Program, gave an engaging presentation on stream food webs.
February 3-4: ATW hosted the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council's Basic Wildlife Rehabilitation Course in Georgetown. There were over 40 participants!
February 10: Roger Rucker, an ATW education programs volunteer, taught us all about Texas owls.
February 16: Sharon B. and Roger R., shown in the photo above, represented ATW at the annual Sun City Nonprofit Fair in Georgetown.
Blackie, One Amazing Opossum by Kim Fross
Orphaned baby opossum Blackie came to All Things Wild in the Spring of 2017 with her nine littermates, all of whom were black because they were genetically missing the white guard hairs that make most opossums gray. When time came for release, Blackie couldn’t be released with her littermates because she was showing signs of metabolic bone disease (MBD), caused by a calcium deficiency. Opossums with MBD have weak bones, but, fortunately, MBD is reversible when caught early.
I carefully monitored Blackie’s diet, adding additional dicalcium phosphate, as well as restricting her ability to climb in her cage so she wouldn’t fall and break a bone. While I worked hard to reverse her MBD, Blackie kept busy playing surrogate mom to other orphaned baby opossums (joeys) who came to ATW for rehabilitation. She did so well, the babies would follow her around the cage snuggling with her. After a few months of care, I started to see her condition improve. I was thrilled when she started walking more normally and not so bowlegged!
In October, Blackie was a star at ATW’s first annual Wildfest 2017 where she and I met hundreds of people showing them how great opossums are! She was doing so well that I knew I had to let her go to the wild if she was going to have a happy life. But, because she had had a little more than the usual human contact, I could only set her free in my backyard in case she needed to come back for more strengthening and maturing as a wild opossum. After a few weeks of hands-off conditioning, it was time to let her go.
Two months went by and no Blackie. Then, around the middle of January 2018, I saw an all-black opossum sitting on top of cages on my patio. I slowly approached her and realized it was Blackie! I gave her a little treat of frozen mice and half a banana and placed a wooden box on a cage for shelter. After that, she came back to the box nearly every night for her treats.
One morning, I went out to check on her and saw that her box was filled with leaves—she had made a nest, which made me wonder if she was getting ready to have babies. A couple of weeks later, Blackie allowed me to reach inside her pouch where I felt four joeys the size of jellybeans. This week, I was able to get a video of the now grape-size joeys.
Like their cousins the kangaroos, opossums are marsupials. According to their natural history, two weeks after conception, the tiny opossum fetuses, the size of jelly beans, make their way out of the mother’s uterus and into her pouch where they permanently attach to thirteen teats. The joeys remain in the pouch for several months where they develop.
All of us at ATW are so excited about getting to watch Blackie’s babies develop. We have studied opossum natural history but have never gotten to witness the development of opossum joeys firsthand. Without the hard work of ATW rehabilitators and volunteers, wild animals like Blackie would not have a chance. ATW does not receive any funding from city, county, or state agencies. Volunteer rehabilitators, including myself, spend thousands of dollars of our own money to rehabilitate the animals in our care. Donations to ATW relieve the burden on our rehabilitators and allow ATW to buy food, medical supplies, veterinary treatment and more for Central Texas wildlife.
All Things Wild will be holding Capture & Transport Training after the Lunch & Learn on April 14. If you drive a car and want to help the wild animals, becoming a capture and transport volunteer could be the right fit for you!
Whether it's a tiny baby sparrow or a snarling adult raccoon, we will teach you how to secure an animal for transport to a rehabilitator. The training will be taught by experienced wildlife rehabilitators Karen Orth and Roger Rucker.
All Things Wild would like to establish a roster of trained capture and transport volunteers that we can call on to help with injured and orphaned wild animals. If you are interested in providing this needed and valuable service, please plan to attend. The training will be held on Saturday, April 14 around 12:30 pm at Unity Church of the Hills. If you have any questions or to RSVP, please email us at allthingswildrehab@gmail.com.
(Mileage driven while performing volunteer duties for All Things Wild Rehabilitation, Inc. is tax-deductible as a charitable contribution at the rate of 14 cents per mile. See IRS Publication 526 for more information on charitable contributions.)
68th Annual James Steele Conference on
Diseases in Nature Transmissible to Man (DIN)
May 23-25, 2018
Royal Sonesta Houston Galleria Hotel
Houston, Texas
DIN is a not-for-profit conference and serves as a forum for the presentation of epidemiological investigations, clinical case studies, basic and applied research, and other topics in emerging and current zoonotic and environmentally-acquired infectious diseases. The conference's goalis to increase knowledge and awareness of these diseases within the medical, public health, and academic research communities.
Participants include physicians, physician assistants, nurses, veterinarians, epidemiologists, virologists, microbiologists, parasitologists, entomologists, sanitarians, public health professionals, wildlife biologists, animal control officers, and others involved in the diagnosis, investigation, prevention, control, and research of zoonoses and environmentally-acquired infectious diseases.
DIN is co-sponsored by the Texas Department of State Health Services Zoonosis Control Branch and the Texas Health Institute. For more information on the conference, please visit https://sites.google.com/site/diseasesinnature.
A quick and easy way to support ATW! Randalls Good Neighbor Program:
Every time you shop at Randalls and show your Randalls card, we get a percentage of the total. There is no cost to you. Click here to download the form. Print it, complete it, and then turn it in at the Courtesy Booth. Our group is number 13341.
All Things Wild Rehabilitation, Inc., is a nonprofit, tax-exempt public charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Tax ID number is 46-1309620. Donations to All Things Wild Rehabilitation are tax-deductible as allowed by the Internal Revenue Code.
