If you follow wildlife rehabilitation on social media or other locations you might see all kinds of release techniques. From throwing eagles into the air to tipping over a box and dumping its passenger out. At Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, we take a different approach. After selecting a release location as near to the patient’s original rescue location as prudent or possible, we set the transport vessel down, open the lid or door to an unobstructed avenue of escape and step back. At this moment, our patient ceases to be our patient. They are released from care and all the decision-making about their destiny is restored to them and their true autonomy. In other words, they leave the box when they are good and ready.
We waited for six minutes for this young female Striped Skunk (Mephitis mephitis) to emerge from her carrier and re-enter the dune world a few hundred feet from where she was first found, a few days before trapped in an outbuilding in Fairhaven. Uninjured, we took her back to a nearby location to release her. Six minutes is a long time when you’re stuck in traffic, but it’s nothing when you’re returning a wild neighbor to her home.
BAX staff carefully places the carrier down so that our skunk patient can exit with ease once the lid is open.
So we patiently waited for our former patient to emerge, with one check to make sure that she is okay and not tangled in the bedding that’s also in the box. Eventually our young patient steps out of the box of her own free will (she begins to leave the box at 5:48) and then quickly makes her way to cover and then (out of view of the camera) up and over the dune along a trail that the we hadn’t noticed before she used it.
Rescuing wild animals who are injured, orphaned or otherwise caught in one of the myriad traps our human-built world has created, providing appropriate treatment, and releasing those who fully recover back to their wild and free lives is how we spend every single day of the year at HWCC/bax. But not without your support. We are in the middle of crucial fundraiser right now to help recover the costs of our incredibly busy year. We need to raise $10,000 by the end of October, in order to pay our rent and other critical bills! As of the 15th we aren’t even halfway there, which is cuaseing us some concern! Please help if you can! Donate today! Every little bit helps!
photos/video: Bird Ally X/Lucinda Adamson
