Abstract
Globally, millions of animals are rescued and rehabilitated by wildlife carers each year. Information gathered in this process is useful for uncovering threats to native wildlife, particularly those from anthropogenic causes. However, few studies using rehabilitation data include a diverse range of fauna, cover large geographical areas, and consider long-term trends. Furthermore, few studies have statistically modelled causes of why animals come into care, and what are their chances of survival. This study draws on 469,553 rescues reported over six years by wildlife rehabilitators for 688 species of bird, reptile, and mammal from New South Wales, Australia. For birds and mammals, ‘abandoned/orphaned’ and ‘collisions with vehicles’ were the dominant causes for rescue, however for reptiles this was ‘unsuitable environment’. Overall rescue numbers were lowest in winter, and highest in spring, with six-times more ‘abandoned/orphaned’ individuals in spring than winter. Of the 364,461 rescues for which the fate of an animal was known, 92% fell within two categories: ‘dead’, ‘died or euthanased’ (54.8% of rescues with known fate) and animals that recovered and were subsequently released (37.1% of rescues with known fate). Modelling of the fate of animals indicated that the likelihood of animal survival (i.e. chance of: being released, left and observed, or permanent care), was related to the cause for rescue. In general, causes for rescue involving physical trauma (collisions, attacks, etc.) had a much lower likelihood of animals surviving than other causes such as ‘unsuitable environment’, ‘abandoned/orphaned’, and this also showed some dependence upon whether the animal was a bird, reptile, or mammal. This suggests rehabilitation efforts could be focused on particular threats or taxa to maximise success, depending on the desired outcomes. The results illustrate the sheer volume of work undertaken by rehabilitation volunteers and professionals toward both animal welfare and to the improvement of wildlife rehabilitation in the future.
Highlights
Wildlife rescue and rehabilitation broadly involves the rescuing, treatment, and care of injured, sick or orphaned native animals
Data from this study were obtained for the state of New South Wales (NSW), an area spanning over 800,000 km2 in south-eastern Australia
The data presented in this study were acquired from volunteer wildlife rehabilitation providers acting in accordance with a licence issued under the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016
Summary
Wildlife rescue and rehabilitation broadly involves the rescuing, treatment, and care of injured, sick or orphaned native animals. The sector is regulated under licence by the New South Wales Government (i.e. National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and within), totalling approximately 50 rehabilitation providers each year of various sizes and capacities. Half of these are volunteer groups, with the remainder either rehabilitation facilities or independent rehabilitators. Homebased multi-species care is the sector’s primary mode of operation These services are augmented by a small number of central facility-based organisations which are predominantly single species or similar species focused, and wildlife hospitals that function as animal display establishments (i.e. zoos and aquaria; [7])
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