Wildlife rehabilitators work to help return injured, sick, or abandon animals to return to the wild. Oftentimes, someone finds an animal that has been hurt or which appears to be sick. They may also find birds or other small critters that have been abandoned by their mother or who have become orphaned because something has happened to the mother. These rehabilitators work to care for these animals, then find a suitable environment to return them to the wild.
Who Do They Help?
Wildlife rehabilitators work with many different types of wild animals. This includes raccoons, skunks, birds, reptiles, and even animals like foxes and wolves. Each one of these animals has a valuable place within the ecosystem, and so the rehabilitators work to care for these animals so they can be nursed back to health.
There are some instances where they will not assist animals. One that is sick to the point that it is impossible to nurse them back to health are humanely euthanized. They don’t want to return a sick animal to the environment, which could then infect other animals and cause a serious epidemic.
What about Rats?
While wildlife rehabilitators will work with these kinds of wild animals, it is not the case when it comes to animals like rats. This may seem unfair, but it makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
No matter where you live, there is a huge number of rats that live in that area. Rats have survived and thrived in any location where human beings live, primarily because they live off the innovation and hard work of people. They live in our homes and businesses. They eat our food and leftovers. They are sheltered by our creations. They even move from place to place on the vehicles and transportation we have created.
This has enabled them to thrive in huge numbers no matter what the location is. There are literally tens of millions of rats in the largest cities of the world, and there are huge numbers in rural areas like farms and forest areas. If there are human beings around, you can be sure that rats are thriving there.
Because of this reason, there is really no reason for the rehabilitators to care for them. This may seem kind of callous, but if a few rats don’t survive, it really doesn’t affect the ecosystem whatsoever. This is not true of foxes or raccoons, who have much smaller numbers in any environment.
There is also a significant amount of concern about the diseases that rats carry. No animal carries more diseases dangerous to human beings than rats, and putting the wildlife rehabilitators health at risk doesn’t make sense.
A person is able to call the rehabilitators to ask questions about caring for a rat that may be hurt or injured, but they will not be able to bring it in. This allows them to care for the rat on their own if they so desire.
Go back to the Asheville wildlife removal home page.