Interrupted Lives: Welfare Considerations in Wildlife Rehabilitation

Wildlife rehabilitation is the practice of caring for sick, injured, or orphaned wild animals with the goal of releasing them back to the wild. This review demonstrates the complexity of considerations rehabilitators and veterinarians face while trying to optimize the welfare of wildlife in need of care and rehabilitation. The welfare of animals, including the thousands of wild animals presented for rehabilitation each year in the United States, is of increasing concern to the public. Almost all wildlife rehabilitation in the United States requires practitioners to have a federal or state permit and is privately funded. The process of rehabilitation is inherently stressful for wildlife and maintaining the individual animal's welfare at the center of the rehabilitation process requires deliberate, timely, and humane decision making. The welfare of wild animals can be improved by preventing human-related causes of admission, providing much-needed resources and support for those animals in rehabilitation, further developing evidence-based wildlife rehabilitation methods and welfare measures, increasing engagement of the veterinary profession, harmonizing regulatory oversight with standards of care, training, and accountability, and raising public awareness regarding the steps that can be taken to mitigate the number of wild animals in need of rehabilitation.Each year in the United States, thousands of sick, injured, or displaced wild animals are presented to individuals or organizations who have either a federal or state permit that allows them to care for these animals with the goal of releasing them back to the wild. The purpose of this review is to demonstrate the complexity of considerations rehabilitators and veterinarians face while trying to optimize the welfare of wild animals in need of care and rehabilitation. The process of rehabilitation is inherently stressful for wildlife. Maintaining an animal's welfare during the rehabilitation process-from initial contact and tria+ge to the animal's euthanasia, release, or captive placement-requires deliberate, timely and humane decision making. The welfare of wild animals can be improved by preventing human-related causes of admission, providing resources and support for wildlife rehabilitation (almost all rehabilitation in the United States is privately funded and access to veterinary care is often limited); further developing evidence-based wildlife rehabilitation methods and welfare measures, attracting more veterinary professionals to the field, harmonizing regulatory oversight with standards of care, training, and accountability, and increasing public education.