Wildlife Rehabilitation: Caring for Injured and Orphaned Wild Animals

Wildlife rehabilitation helps thousands of injured and orphaned wild animals annually, requiring specialized skills to balance animal welfare with the goal of successful release.

Key Facts

The US has approximately 4,000 licensed wildlife rehabilitators caring for millions of animals annually
Survival rates after rehabilitation vary by species — songbirds average 30-50% while raptors reach 60-70%
Human imprinting is the greatest welfare risk in rehabilitation, creating animals unable to survive independently
Pain management is a critical and sometimes overlooked component of wildlife rehabilitation welfare
Financial models for wildlife rehabilitation are precarious — most are nonprofit and volunteer-dependent
Wildlife rehabilitation provides data on population health, disease surveillance, and environmental threats

Welfare Considerations

Wildlife rehabilitation navigates a fundamental tension: providing enough human care to enable recovery while minimizing contact that could impair successful release. Animals that become habituated to humans face miserable fates — unable to fear human activity, they are at constant risk of re-injury or euthanasia as unreleasable. Welfare-centered rehabilitation minimizes unnecessary handling, provides appropriate pain management, houses animals with conspecifics where possible, and makes honest release-or-euthanasia decisions based on quality of life rather than emotional attachment.

What You Can Do

Support licensed wildlife rehabilitators through donations and volunteer assistance
Know how to correctly assess and transport injured wildlife before contacting rehabilitators
Never attempt to rehabilitate wildlife yourself without training — improper care causes suffering
Keep cats indoors and dogs under control to reduce wildlife casualties requiring rehabilitation
Support habitat restoration to reduce the causes of wildlife injury and orphaning