Transcript:

00:00                                         This is Melissa Hale-Spencer, the editor of the Altamont Enterprise here this morning with Kelly Martin and our readers are probably familiar with her from pictures and calendar notices over the years and she hardly ever appears in these pictures alone. She sometimes has an owl on her hand. She's sometimes with a deer or a porcupine. She is an animal rehabilitator. Welcome Kelly.

00:27                                         Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.

00:29                                         I would just like to start with finding out and you've been doing this I think for [inaudible] years. How did you begin this? What, what started at all?

00:42                                         Well, I think going way back, way  back, I um, had parents that should've said no when they didn't. Every animal in the neighborhood that needed help ended up at our house and my parents were very generous with opening the door to these things so long before I knew it was a licensed activity or really knew what I was doing. We were trying to take care of animals even when I was young. In terms of where did you grow up? I actually grew up in Alabama. My Gosh, my father worked for IBM. So we did a, you know, a little bit of traveling, but we were in Alabama for most of my, uh, you know, formative years here in Berne, in Berne, yes.

01:22                                         But with, so you were in a rural area in Alabama were and

01:25                                         actually it was kind of a, you know, a suburb neighborhood, but you know, the most common things you might think Robinson squirrels because they're in everybody's backyard, but also domestic animals, stray dogs, cats all ended up at our house.

01:40                                         And so you just had a natural way with them. You were able to learn w

01:46                                         we'd certainly had our failures because we didn't know what we were doing, especially with the wild animals. Um, but a lot of the other domestic things we just ended up, you know, keeping as our own pets. And uh, in terms of actually getting very involved in rehabilitation, uh, we got transferred back to New York and I happened to find two injured opossums on the same night and didn't know what I was doing with them. And um, I was living in the Binghamton area at the time and the zoo director at the m Ross Park Zoo in Binghamton. I met at an event and I told him about finding these animals and what should I do and he advised me that first of all, you needed to have a license to do this and then gave me some advice on husbandry and veterinarians to go to, to see about dealing with the problems these animals had and he said, you know, you ought to get a license.

02:44                                         And that sort of started me down the path of doing this officially. So the licensing is handled by the states department of Environmental Conservation. The. Yes it is. I'm in New York state license to rehabilitate wildlife allows you to take of mammals, reptiles and I'm game birds. And just if you could walk us through the process of getting a license, how do you learn to do this? And what. That's a good question. And I think there is a bit of a, a gap in the New York state licensing. We, we actually were very proud from many years of our program in New York state. We kind of pioneered a lot of the um, licensing aspect of it, encouraging people to get an education. You do have to pass a test in New York state. We were the first state to do that. The gap is you can pass that test on paper and never have touched a wild animal.

03:41                                         There's no, there's no enzymes, no hands on component. Now, in order to handle federally protected migratory birds, you do have to have a federal permit from the US fish and wildlife service that as I do, I do. And with that permit you, you actually have to apprentice or mentor with somebody for a certain number of hours before you can get your own permit to do birds. So we need to do a little catch up in New York state with that and we always encourage people to apprentice or mentor was somebody or volunteer, but it's not required at this point. We'd actually, um, when I say we, um, we do have a state wildlife rehabilitation organization, the New York State Wildlife Rehabilitation Council. I am for longer than I care to admit, but, but we're, we're not a center. We're a statewide education organization. We have a newsletter, um, we host a conference every year and we bring in people from all over the country.

04:44                                         Uh, I'm very proud of our conferences. Those are state of the art and people speakers love to come back because it's just a great venue for sharing and training and, and for people to connect with other rehabilitators. Um, so through the council you can get training. There is a national organization that has a conference, so those opportunities are there, but we'd actually like to see a continuing education component required, um, because also things change year to year in terms of best, you know, practice as practices, best diets, best husbandry, medical skills. Um, so we'd love to see that happen.

05:31                                         We, we seem to, whatever the licensed group is via thousand, um, we, we tend to retain about a third membership. Um, I, I kind of think our best, uh, delivery services to people who are beginners and intermediate. So once they, they gain those skill sets and think they know it all, they tend to not maybe remain members. Um, so when you yourself went through the licensing process, you took the written test, but did you also, let me just say that I've been doing this long enough that I actually kind of got grandfathered in. Grandmother did because there wasn't a, are the council helped develop that program where the licensing was a requirement. So those of us that have been doing this long enough didn't have to take a test. Um, so after that experience with the two, did you say, oh, possibly Opossum, did they end up living this?

06:29                                         Yes, they did. Actually. I was able to release them. So how did you, yourself learn when you said there was no, you were grandfathered it in, there was no society then to teach you or to have seminars or to help you. And how did I did again? I relied. I actually ended up working at Ross Park Zoo after I met the director and he, he actually was running a wildlife rehabilitation program at the zoo at the time. And um, he got me involved in the state organization, he was in on the beginning of it and the zoo actually sent me to these national conferences. It was a wonderful learning opportunity for me. So the essential difference though, between a zoo animal and what you do is your goal is to get the injured animal, well again, back to the child as opposed to looking at the description of what we do is we take care of sick, injured, orphaned, native wildlife with the goal of trying to return a healthy animal to the wild.

07:29                                         So the idea, I would think of all of you that are licensed in a way so that the public who, I don't know, every year we get people calling her newspaper saying in the Spring, oh, I band a little bit, I always try to say don't try to rescue the next year. But the idea is that the public can be largely ill-informed and they should call a rehabilitative or if they find a genuinely injured animal. Correct. And you put that very diplomatically not being well informed. Uh, yes, it's true. I'm I, in addition to doing the rehabilitation aspect of this natural off shoot for some of us is to take on the public education aspect of this and that is we have different licenses and permits that allows us to keep some things permanently that are unable to be returned to the wild. So they kind of become ambassadors for their species or for just as you said, public information and education.

08:30                                         I'm very surprised how little people know about what lives in their backyard and when they should or should not, um, interfere or rescue will give us the basics so people will know when should you just step back and say, this is nature. I think some of it is such common sense that if a wild animal allows a person to walk right up to it and touch it or it walks up to you, then that's a big red flag. That something is wrong. It's either injured and physically cannot run or fly away from you. Um, or diseased to the point of being unable to run or fly away from you. Or it's too young and it just is not capable yet of that kind of mobility, but that should be a big red flag that something is wrong in the case of young animals. Um, that's where people make the biggest mistake is rescuing things that don't really need to be rescued.

09:30                                         As you brought up, dare. That's a big one. There is nothing more irresistible than a foreign to people that find one curled up by itself, don't see the mother and start getting very concerned that it's abandoned, orphaned, it needs help. And often that is just not the case. Um, the other common example are fledgling birds because people don't realize they don't fly right away. It takes them some time to develop that skill, but the parents will feed them on the ground and it's the inclination when you see something that appears so helpless and defenseless to rescue it and help it and save it. And sometimes that's just the wrong thing to do. So for these animals, at my house, I don't have a bar and I'm not a farm. I actually live in the middle of state land. But I do have a lot of outside cages now. I have a room that is dedicated to wildlife. I don't have wild animals running and flying freely and in my house. I mean I have pets but. But not the wildlife. And so there are times either when things are on a feeding schedule that they need to be inside on heat or recovering from an injury or a disease where again, having them inside in that room is, is a critical part of their care. Once they're able to go outside, then we move them outside.

10:56                                         Typical month. Would you describe the kinds of animals that come to you and what you do for them or just even in? I would say that this year with our weather being so wonderful, we'll say sarcastically that I it, it seems to be a slow start to what we refer to as baby season, which is our busy season. When animals are nesting and it generally coincides when people are doing more activities outside where they encounter these things. Well, the weather's been so bad. I actually, knock on wood, have had a slow start to my baby season, which I'm very happy about, um, because we can get very overwhelmed pretty quickly, but, but even so just in the last month, um, again, it's been a slow month, but I had a call about a, um, a great horned owls, an outlet, a baby on the ground, and we were not able to locate the den tree.

11:54                                         Ah, we looked around quite a bit, couldn't find it. So if you had found it, what would it be? If it were possible to return it to the nest? We try. It did seem to be, get a ladder. Well, I haven't had to do this too often. I have friends who do exclusively birds in Maine and they have, they recruit a I'm logging company is a electrical, you know, like national grid with their bucket trucks to try because alumnis are going to be very high up in a tree and they do try to return them. If we can return them safely and the baby is not, you know, two week or hurt, then we try to reunite when we can, that the outlet did seem to be a little young to be out of the nest and it was thin so it had not been being fed and we just couldn't locate the tree. Now my adult great horned owls that are my education birds, um, become foster parents in that case, we, yeah, I use a lot of my birds of prey as foster parents.

12:59                                         Passengers for the public are accurate. They don't necessarily feed them, but it's very important that the babies have their own species to interact with so they don't become too attached to people. And that that's an important part of what we do is to try and keep these animals wild. Not saying them. So how do you do that? Well, in this case it is, um, once I fed this baby up to get his weight up a little bit, um, Eh, now he had already what we call imprinted on his parents, which is species recognition and proper social interaction. So he knew he was a, now, um, he wasn't so young that he would imprint on people, but once I got his weight up, then he, you know, I put them in a basket in the cage with my adult birds. He will then hear and see his own species and therefore interact normally with his own kind.

13:53                                         So all goes well with this outlet. He'll be released. Tell me what that process is like sometimes we do with the baby that has not yet learned its territory. Um, and, and once it's independent of the parents, they kind of have to find their own territory anyway. It's more important to return an adult that may be part of a breeding pair that already knows its territory to return them where they come from, when we can, uh, with the young ones, we just try to make sure it's good habitat competition with, you know, with existing, um, birds or whatever the species is, it's hard to ascertain. Um, and you hate to think that they get kicked out right away by resident, um, you know, birds or mammals of the own species. But that's a little hard to avoid. They have to deal with that anyway. So like sending your kids off to college kind.

14:51                                         So you go and you take them. And what do you do? What you hope is that you open the door and. No, usually I, I mean I do release some things where I live, um, but I also know I kind of do know what lives around me. Um, so I probably would not really. Well I did last year, released a great horned owls at my property antibody now and I know I have both in the area, so whether I would do that again the next year or I'd pick another spot so that these guys know you. I mean we don't have the same relationship as you do with your dog or your cat or even a pet bird. So they may know me that I think they recognize me when I'm the cage, but their reaction is that I'm an intruder, I'm a potential predator. Um, in the case of the aisles, they're going to hiss and clack at me and react defensively because they don't want me near them, which is, which is good.

15:49                                         They shouldn't want that. Yeah. So if you're just looking at this past month, other than. Oh Wow. Yes, I did have a bar towel that was hit by a car and it turns out it was only just stunned, but we get the calls anytime of day or night. And this was about 9:00 at night. This family, um, had picked him up off the side of the road actually. He had kind of bounced off their car and the teenage son went out and picked him up, wrapped him up in his jacket and was holding him in his lap. And I, I asking people to come to my house sometimes it's not a good idea because I'm in the middle of state land and it's not the most pleasant drive in the winter at night. Winter being only a month ago. Um, so I had my leather gloves up to my elbows trying to untangle this al from the kids jacket.

16:44                                         And I was like, boy, I can't believe you just held them in your lap. And, but being in the dark covered up, not seeing what he should be stressed about. The bird was very calm until we pull the jacket over his head and then he's trying to tell on us and, you know, get us with the big. Turns out that bird really only just was stunned. And once I evaluated that he had no fractures anywhere and no head trauma that was warranted more than a couple of days rest. Um, we did take him back to where he was found and released him. And it was, that was wonderful because they would be in the onset of their breeding season. So if he was part of a pair, he or she, um, it was nice to return him. So that was a good one. See, I released would chuck, uh, just a couple of days ago that had come to me somehow as a juvenile. It got it's head stuck in a, a metal ring. I have no idea what it was. But then the animal grew and this ring was stuck around his neck causing a horrible, horrible injury, literally all the way it was wrapped around his neck.

17:56                                         Now actually I was able to cut it off and it was, um, it was nothing that was going to require no suturing or stitches. So it was just cleaning the wound and, and treating that infection. And uh, but that came to me in the fall and being a wood chuck that was going to hibernate. Plus that was an injury that took a long time to heal. But it did. And I was able to release him. And boy was I glad because he was not a happy camper. I'm so he released him, released a chipmunk that I had overwintered. Um, and then, uh, what else to call just last night from somebody that. And here's where we come into the, um, uninformed public aspect of this. Sometimes people interfere with the unpleasantness of nature. There was a bird being attacked by other, another bird, and they went out and rescued.

18:51                                         It probably was a predatory hawk that missed his meal because the people, it's a hard thing to witness. The bird was being picked apart and they rescued it and of course it was such a severe injury, um, that it died within an hour. Um, and that again, that's a hard thing to tell people to go in the house, walk away and let it go. Um, because those are predatory birds and they, they need to eat too. And it's different. Uh, we draw a different ethical lines, I guess you could say. Now had it been somebody who's cat attacking that bird, I have a different opinion about that. Um, birds do an awful lot of damage to wildlife and them in the environment is different than a naturally occurring native Hock Tan or Fox or a coyote that is a natural Predator in the environment. So cats are a little different.

19:52                                         Um, and I have cats. I love my cats, but my under inside cabinets or. Well, yes and no. Um, I would say that with that example of a Predator going after its natural prey, um, as hard as it is, I would say don't interfere and, but people's reactions, especially if it's, let's say a coyote that's caught off on, um, it's hard to look at a fund struggling to get away from a predator. I recognize that, but, but yes, the human aspect, we do an awful lot of damage to the environment, to animals, to wildlife. Um, some of it's very hard to avoid in terms of just general habitat loss or vehicles number one cause of injury. We see wildlife, our vehicle collisions and that's a tough one. Um, we all have to get places we need to go, trying to be more aware and observant to try to avoid hitting things.

21:00                                         But a lot of the other things are either directly or indirectly related to human activities as you called them. What animals that you keep with you and where do you go and what you teach? Um, I would go, now we do it. My programs do somewhat offset my costs of rehabilitating wildlife because most rehabilitators are volunteers. So most of the expenses are out of pocket, so to do a program, it's not that I wouldn't do one for free, but we do like to get, you know, something to pay for our time and gas money and it goes directly back into the care of the animals. So it depends on what people are doing this with no recompense, including. Correct. You have to pay for food. I will say yes. And I actually our license, I'm actually prohibits charging a fee for care. Now. It doesn't mean people can't say, you know, here's a donation towards the cause, but we can't say a robin to rehabilitate a Robin would cost you $20 to rehabilitate an eagle would be 200.

22:21                                         We can't do that. Our license actually pro prohibits that track back to the address. That was just important for people to realize. Most of what we use our birds, the they're easier to display restrain and if it's safer you have to actually have a whole different license. In order to exhibit mammals, you have to have a Usda animal exhibitors licensed for that, which is a more involved and complicated process where they do actually have a caging standards. Um, someone actually comes and inspects your facilities for that so that it's a lot easier to do birds, reptiles. I do use, um, turtles as well, sometimes maybe a snake. Occasionally I always warn people because there's still an awful lot of phobia out there about snakes or just a general dislike. So it's easier to use the birds and the birds of prey are easier because they're larger, easier to restrain using falconry techniques.

23:28                                         Actually the leather straps on, um, around the legs and tethered to a leash on your glove or on a perch. I witnessed you during these sessions and people are just mesmerized. Um, I guess because it's so unusual to see a bird like that up close and to understand what is a wonderful opportunity to see them up close. Well, I've looked up an article that we did two years ago and I am praying. I don't even know what happened with his suit. There was, um, your group brought a suit against the state because it suddenly changed the rules, particularly focusing on deer where the argument was that, um, the rehabilitators felt it was worthwhile to keep deer for a long enough time that they could heal and have a chance when they got back in the wild and the state was trying to limit it to 48 hours that, that had to do with adult dare the time limit.

24:21                                         Um, what happened and how did that come out? Well, on the council, we lost our suit. It was more on a technicality kind of thing as opposed to the merit of the case. It's my understanding that [inaudible] is reviewing these conditions, but nothing has changed yet. Um, they recognize, first of all, they didn't involve the regulated community at all and they certainly had public hearings over anything. Having An, I'm not, this is not an anti hunting statement, but anytime they're going to do anything to a hunting license, they are letting the community know they are asking for input, evaluating how the regulated community feels about it. I may have a new survey system. Yes, yes. And they did not do that with us and I'm not sure if they're going to change it, what they're going to change. So what we remain, um, are opposed to still is that there's a 48 hour limit in terms of adult dare that are injured.

25:27                                         Um, if they are, they either have to be euthanized, uh, released within 48 hours. Now I can say that honestly, there aren't too many rehabilitators that feel that they can handle adult deer, but those that do 48 hours is just, it's inhumane. Uh, I don't think an animal with head trauma you can expect if it's severe that it, you know, you don't want to release it when it's still stumbling around and, and uncoordinated and you know, that that's just, it's just not right. Um, and to then turn your back on something that you could potentially help and say, I can't help it because I don't have enough time allowed to do it is just not right. Um, so the, I mean, the other, there are a couple of other objections we have. Um, one is the, and I don't know how they expect us to deal with this bear cubs.

26:23                                         There's a weight limit. You were not supposed to rehabilitate any cub over 25 pounds. I'm not sure how you evaluate the weight of an animal on the side of the road next to it's dead mother. Not to be graphic about it, but um, what do you expect the public to do if they see a carb and a dead mother and we have to say we can't take it because it's 26 pounds, which we really couldn't tell until we got it back. And we waited anyway. So we object to that and then the time limit, yes, on, on when they want us to release funds, there are some rehabilitation who release in the fall and most of those are ones that can just open a pen and let them wander and they can kind of come and go until they get with the program. Some people do like to overwinter them and release them in the spring when they've had a little bit more time to mature.

27:23                                         And if you look at the population dynamics of what you see through the winter, it's primarily the ones that are hurted up are the dose with the funds of the previous year. So it's not an unnatural thing for them to hang with. Excuse me. Hang with a mother throughout the winter until spring. Um, so we, we object to that. So this is still in flux. It is. And um, I'm hoping they're going to relax that. I heard that they were going to. I know they had some meetings about it, but as of yet licensed conditions have not changed so we still have to, you know, we can't violate the license conditions so we're still kind of stuck with. It must be difficult. It is. So our time too fast. But you have any parting thoughts that you'd like people to know? Either about yourself? We didn't get too much and how this affects you personally, which would interest me if it's hard to get, you know, release these animals.

28:23                                         Sometimes it is. Yeah. Or did you have any favorite? Although I have a couple of favorites and I currently have a favorite that depending on how you look at it, you may not view it as a rehabilitation success. Um, I have a bobcat that I raised and in the 35 plus years I've been doing this, I never had a bobcat until two summers ago and I got to. The first one I got in was, um, his eyes were just beginning to open. So he was right at about three weeks old. Mother had been hit by a car. And um, so when you get one in that young, you're feeding schedule is like a bottle every three hours maybe as it is. And, and then when the eyes fully open and he gets visual focus, it, it's people. Back to your other question about, um, I'll finish.

29:22                                         OK? But one thing we try to do is to avoid them getting used to people is if we have a single orphan, we try to find another orphan of the same species. So rehabilitators are always sharing orphans to make sure that these animals have their own kind. Anyway, he, I had him about a month and then I got a call about a second bobcat, but that one, because of the timing in the season was a month older when I got it. So he came snarly, hissing, growling, don't come near me. Totally a normal bobcat attitude. And I thought, great, you know, once I'm sure he's healthy and expose my other one to any, you know, diseases or parasites, I'll put them together and, and mine will have another bobcat buddy. Well that month that the original one spent with people just being cared for in a natural, you know, bottle feeding schedule and cleaning and that sort of thing.

30:22                                         Um, he was happy to be housed with the other one and they did play and they weren't aggressive to each other, but every time he'd see a person heals, he start to par and then totally ignore the other cat when he saw a person. So he, he just was so young when we got them. And I think there are individual animals sometimes are a little more predisposed to attaching themselves to whoever's taking care of them. Um, so I released the one and I opted not to release the other one because I have him, but I'm, and I've been going back and forth in if I wanted to apply myself to get that USDA permit to keep a mammal for an education animal, but he's a big cat. He's probably, uh, he probably weighs 50 pounds realistically thinking that I would take him out into the public is, is not, I don't think a realistic educational setting it would.

31:23                                         And there are, there are exhibitors that have those kinds of mammals. Um, but the other option is that he's an educational animal at my, my home where I rehabilitate now you can't publicly display rehabilitation animals. So I would have to be able to separate out the rehab from the education and that would mean people at my house constantly, you know, to make them available as an education. And I really don't want to do that because I'm not going to release him. I'm not going to release him. I think he would do something totally inappropriate and get into trouble and probably end up dead because of it. So I, I, I'm probably gonna play some at the trail side zoo at bear mountain state park. They have another Bobcat, a female, and they're building a brand new bobcat. Exhibit a male this way it's a male now he's, he's going to be neutered.

32:19                                         Nobody, we don't need more bobcat's in the captive, you know, in captivity. But uh, he should be compatible with her. I think I'm not being aggressive. Bobcats are they not really. Not really. Didn't have a, he'll have a feline companion. He'll be, if he still wants to be attached to people a few years down the road, he'll, he'll be able to do that. So, but they're building a huge brand new bobcat exhibit so it'll be a wonderful place and he'll still Umm, he's gorgeous and he is a gorgeous animal, but he's a big boy so that you can't really call that a rehabilitation success. But he of course is one of my favorite animals now. We draw a line to, we try not to let ourselves get attached. Well it is hard. And then in his case, once I realized that he was pretty much a human oriented cat, then you relax the line a little bit so that that's a different relationship than the ones we know we're going to release.

33:31                                         So it's not exactly a success, but for fun, it was exciting. It was exciting when I see them at a distance, it's thrilling, they're gorgeous. And when I released the other one, um, you know, I thought I might see him hanging around because he, you know, the other cat's still in the same cage and trotted off and never saw him again. So it's great. Where you live, you said state land, you know, must happen. Well is all around you. I do. And it, it's a good way and bad way. I mean we're, we're five acres in the middle of state land, so we are surrounded by you know, property, uh, that is used by the public, not just hiking and snowmobiling, but also hunting. And I'm, again, I'm not an anti hunter, I don't necessarily like it that close to me because being state land, you don't always get the most ethical hunters that use it.

34:30                                         Um, there's a fair amount of garbage left behind by the snowmobilers and we've, we've heard shots taken out of season and this kind of thing and they don't always respect our posted sign. So. But it's, yes, it's nice that I don't have people looking down at what I'm doing all the time. A lot of these animals literally in your backyard. Yes. So do you have any closing thoughts? Um, no, but I, yes, I do. And that is that I, despite sounding maybe a little negative, that the public is ill informed about things. I'm very grateful that they care and it's a good thing. I think that they care. So I don't want to discourage people from. If an animal does need to be rescued, I don't want to discourage them from doing that. I, I hope that they will. I just hope they'll be smart about it and consider safety issues and health issues and then try to get a rehabilitator to help as soon as possible and which brings up the point that how do they find us a people get our numbers from some veterinarians in the area of law enforcement, five rivers nature center.

35:43                                         I work part time at the height preserving wrens Louisville. They will give out my number, but the DEC does maintain a list of rehabilitative on their website. So that gives people access 24 hours a day because that's the downside. If you call some office after four, before eight weekends, holidays, you may not get a person that's a downside for you. Twenty four seven, but it and where I live is not practical necessarily for a lot of people to come to me, but, but we all work together in the area and if I. The first thing I'll say is where are you calling from? Try to direct people to, to other rehabilitative that might be closer and therefore could respond quicker. But, but I am heartened that people do care and that they do have compassion for, for wildlife because I think once they care about that individual animal, we can kinda maybe get them to care a little bit about the bigger picture in terms of how we do impact wildlife. I'm just through our actions for all you do. Thank you. Appreciate it.