Perceptions

I'm all about wildlife, have been for years. Responsible animal owner ship and care taking of our natural resources.

Since i was a child i have had 8 Dogs , 6 cats, Exotic Fish, and since become a falconer 5 Raptors.

I'm also all about Rehab of animals. Sick and injured animal in the wild get it to a Rehabber, 9 times out 10 its the best place for it. If its 2 sick they will euthanize it and put it out of its misery.

Like falconry, rehabers have set rules. A Rehaber in Oklahoma recently posted an SOS request for a member of general public to go and pick up an injured raptor and keep it over night. Raptors in the US fall under the migratory bird act. A few people mentioned to the Rehab that this was illegal. Needless to say the on slaughter of abuse towards the people that stood for what was right was immense and unjustified. The risk of fines and imprisonment for that the taxi driver ( which is what they where agreeing too) was strong.

The rehab facility then contacted the Oklahoma Wildlife department for clarification and basically got told if you continue this process of asking the general public to pick up your raptors we will take your rehab permit away.

The abuse continued towards the people that had pointed this fact out, to the point of "you are now responsible for millions of deaths" and "we are only one in this area carrying out this work " and finally we can no longer accept Raptors to our clinic" which in all three cases was not correct.

Tragically 80%+ of raptors die anyway in the first year. Whilst Rehab gets the Raptor through a certain stage in its life there is nothing to say that the bird went on to breed or was even killed the next day after release.

Source (http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mortality/)

There are three other Rehabbers in the this particular area of Oklahoma that take Raptors in for rehab.

Lastly , there was no reason to state they couldn't take them in, it was just members of the general public could not go and pick them up for them and then transport them to them.

I think the thing that annoyed me the most with this is that the rehaber in question put the animals they where wanting to save in front of the very supporters that kept them going. This is not to say the animals are not important, they are. But there has to be some sort of balance. Once you loose support, you then loose any effectiveness to do the job you set out to do. What made things worse for me was that they knew this and was willing to put people at risk of fines and imprisonment.

Sad day for animals and raptors in particular and good Samaritans wanting to help them......