By Yvonne Wallace Blane | Project Leader
All you have to do is look at the faces of the interns right before releasing the hawks to freedom to see how 'success' is most easily measured in wildlife rehabilitation. We are excited when the day comes that an animal who came to us starving or injured can go home again, and know that it is 'good bye,' but once in awhile, we get to say 'hello' again...
Buddy came into our lives over three years ago, after she was found injured and starving with an injury to her mouth and jaw. At the hospital on her arrival on 3/22/09, x-rays revealed that a b.b. had lodged in the little squirrel's jaw and caused her teeth to become misaligned and maloccluded, making it impossible for her to eat. Another had just missed her spine.
Buddy spent nearly two years in rehabilitation. The pellet’s proximity to one eye made it impossible to remove, but regular teeth clipping gradually brought Buddy's teeth into alignment and she grew plump and beautiful once she was able to feed herself. In the fall of 2011, we opened the door to her cage and Buddy left captivity to find her place in the wild. Since Fellow Mortals has fox squirrels on site and we hoped to monitor her condition, we gave her a nest box near to the hospital in a lone oak.
We didn’t see Buddy for several weeks after release and of course we worried—then one day in November of 2011 we were excited to see Buddy in the courtyard helping herself to the treats we put out daily for the birds, squirrels and rabbits.
Buddy lived in the 'wilds' of Fellow Mortals for over two years, until the injury that initially brought her to us brought her back into care. We will always be grateful that she had the opportunity to live a life of her own choosing, and feel so privileged that—when she was given the chance to leave, she chose to spend the rest of her life with us. She was never tame, never allowed us to approach too closely, yet we shared our lives.
The rare experience of being able to follow our patients after release occurs every so often, and gives us hope that many of the animals we never see again are also living long, happy lives in the wild.
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