The Value of Having a Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Your Community
Imagine finding an injured bird on your morning walk or a helpless baby squirrel alone in your backyard. These moments remind us of the delicate balance between human life and wildlife. Wildlife rehabilitation centers play a crucial role in maintaining this balance, providing essential services to care for and rehabilitate injured, sick, or orphaned wild animals. Here’s how having a wildlife rehabilitation center in your community benefits everyone — including ways you may not have thought of.
What Do Wildlife Rehabilitation Centers Do?
Wildlife rehabilitation centers serve as hospitals and specialized recovery facilities for injured, sick, or orphaned animals, offering them a chance at recovery and eventual release back into their natural habitats. The primary functions of these centers include:
- Rescue. Wildlife rehabilitators respond to calls about animals in need of assistance, ensuring they receive the triage and immediate care they need.
- Care. These centers provide crucial medical treatment, proper nutrition, and a safe, stress-reducing environment for animals to recover in.
- Rehabilitation. Rehabilitators work to restore each animal’s health and ability to survive in the wild.
- Release. The ultimate goal is to return sick, injured, or orphaned animals to their natural habitats once they are fully recovered and able to thrive on their own.
- Education. Rehabilitation centers also offer public outreach programs that teach kids and adults about the wild animals that live in the region, why they’re an important part of the ecosystem, and how to protect them.
Everyone should know where their closest wildlife rehabilitation center is in case of an emergency, as this helps to avoid wasting critical time when an animal is found and suffering.
By fulfilling these roles, wildlife rehabilitation centers ensure that animals get a second chance at life, contributing to the overall health of local ecosystems.
How Having a Wildlife Center in Your Community Benefits Everyone
Here’s how wildlife centers benefit animals, conservation efforts, and people.
Saves the Lives of Animals
Wildlife rehabilitation centers save countless lives every year. From birds with broken wings to orphaned mammals, these centers provide the necessary medical care and support to help animals recover from their injuries and illnesses. Without these centers, many of these animals would not survive.
Helps Maintain the Population of Endangered Species
Many wildlife rehabilitation centers work with endangered species, providing critical care that helps their populations. By rehabilitating and releasing these animals, centers play a vital role in conservation efforts.
Supports a Balanced Local Ecosystem
Healthy wildlife populations are crucial for maintaining balanced ecosystems. Predators, prey, and plant pollinators all contribute to the biodiversity that keeps ecosystems functional. Wildlife rehabilitation centers ensure that animals can return to their roles in the ecosystem, supporting natural processes and contributing to environmental stability.
Educates the Public About Wildlife
Wildlife rehabilitation centers offer educational programs that teach the public about local wildlife and the importance of conservation. These programs help raise awareness about the challenges that wildlife faces and how individuals can contribute to their well-being. This is essential because humans are, directly or indirectly, the greatest threat to the environment and wild animal species. Through public outreach and education, community members can learn about the animals native to their area and the specific threats they encounter.
Wildlife centers also inform people about the harms (and potential legal repercussions) of keeping a wild animal in captivity for profit or as a pet. This helps to build respect for wildlife and prevent the cruelty and abuse of various species.
Helps People Connect with Their Environment and Local Animal Species
Having a wildlife rehabilitation center nearby fosters a deeper connection between people and their environment. It provides an opportunity to learn about the ecosystems and animals that make their region what it is, which fosters a healthy appreciation for the natural world and inspires a stronger commitment to environmental stewardship.
Offers Kids Exposure to STEM Careers
Wildlife rehabilitation centers offer unique educational opportunities for children, sparking their interest in animal welfare and STEM careers. By providing hands-on experience and fostering a passion for wildlife and conservation, programs and volunteer opportunities at these centers can inspire many a child or teen to pursue a career as a wildlife rehabilitator, biologist, veterinarian, zoologist, environmental scientist, or any number of related professions.
Teaches Compassion and Respect
Engaging with wildlife rehabilitation centers that help injured and orphaned animals teaches compassion and respect for all living beings, which is an essential part of human development. Children who learn this at an early age perform better at school and work as well as in society and relationships. Wildlife rehabilitation centers instill these values in volunteers and visitors, emphasizing the importance of kindness and empathy towards animals. This, in turn, can translate into more compassionate and respectful communities overall.
Having a wildlife rehabilitation center near you offers countless benefits, from saving animal lives to supporting local ecosystems and educating the public in essential ways. These centers not only provide critical care for wildlife but also foster a greater connection between humans and nature, promoting environmental stewardship and compassion. By visiting and supporting your local wildlife rehabilitation center, you help to make the natural world — and your community — stronger and healthier.
Help Wild Animals Thrive With PAWS
Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) is people helping cats, dogs, and wild animals go home and thrive — whether home is the family room or the forest. We do this by rehabilitating orphaned and injured wildlife, sheltering and adopting homeless cats and dogs, and educating the community to inspire compassionate action for animals.
Do you need help with a wild animal? PAWS Wildlife Rehabilitation Center operates an emergency hospital and specialized recovery facilities designed to rehabilitate sick, injured, and orphaned wildlife, restore them to full health, and return them as functioning members of their wild population. Our wildlife rehabilitation center has moved to 13508 State Route 9 SE in Snohomish, Washington. If you need help with a wild animal, use our online self-service form or call 425-412-4040.
Our on-site rehabilitation and veterinary teams provide expert care for more than 170 species of mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles each year. PAWS is only one of a few facilities in Washington state permitted to rehabilitate American black bears and marine mammals, primarily harbor seals. Since 1967, PAWS has united more than 150,000 cats and dogs with loving families, cared for more than 160,000 sick, injured, and orphaned wild animals, and made the world a better place for countless others through outreach, education, and advocacy.
However, we can’t do it without you. Please consider making a donation or volunteering with us today!