With the metropolitan area expanding and open space shrinking, it’s common to find skunks living under the deck and raccoons tearing through heavy-duty garbage cans.
It is also commonplace to find an increasing number of animals injured as a result of running afoul of man and machine. That’s led to more rehabilitation centers where the animals can be nursed back to health.
But critics contend some of those centers are substandard. In response, the state is planning to strengthen the requirements for getting a yearly wildlife-rehabilitation permit. Contrary to what one might expect from the notoriously independent-minded profession, wildlife rehabilitators say they generally support the proposed measures.
“All of us want a change, because anybody with a brain and a pencil can get a license now,” said Jane Seitz, director of Illinois Wild/Life/Line, a Decatur-based state association of wildlife rehabilitation centers. “If I have to pass a test to do this, then I’ll pass a test.”
Still in draft form, the new provisions for obtaining a wildlife-rehabilitation license from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources would include one major change: requiring all rehabilitation centers to meet standards of the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association and the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council.
Those organizations publish a 34-page booklet that details the size and maintenance of cages, offers a code of ethics, and outlines standards for euthanizing animals, among other topics. The groups also offer an extensive manual on other aspects of rehabilitating wildlife.
Other proposed changes include prohibiting the public display of rehabilitated animals, disposing of the animals in 120 days, and halting rehabilitation of a species if the department determines a disease outbreak has occurred.
“We want to ensure that people who are involved in wildlife rehabilitation have the proper facilities and ability to care for wildlife,” said Carol Knowles, Illinois Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman.
She said the department has been receiving “complaints periodically” about substandard rehabilitation centers. In some years, 40 to 60 complaints have been filed, Knowles said.
In addition, legitimate wildlife rehabilitation center owners have expressed concern with substandard centers sprouting up, Knowles said. The state has about 325 licensed wildlife rehabilitation centers, a number that has varied between 240 and 350 in the 1990s, she said.
Several Chicago-area wildlife rehabilitators said the proposed changes, expected to be imposed in 1999 after public hearings, will help.
“I agree with and support each and every one of these changes,” said Bill Lang, owner of Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation in Prospect Heights. “It’s an effort not only to standardize what we do, but to prevent people from doing anything they want anytime they want. You just can’t take that approach in this line of work.”
For all the support, some wildlife rehabilitators said the proposed standards may be too harsh in some areas and too lax in others.
Lisa Gibson, founder of Kane Area Rehabilitation and Education for Wildlife in St. Charles, said adopting the cage standards of the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association and the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council may be too costly for many centers.
She and other colleagues, however, have said the new standards should increase the required age for wildlife rehabilitators to 18 or 21 years old. The requirement would remain unchanged at 15 years old.
“As for requiring humane handling and requiring that you know how to feed these animals, I think that’s fair,” Gibson said. “I just hope they don’t do some overkill.”
