Hearts in the Wild: Inspiring Stories of Animal Rescues

By Roxanne Willems Snopek

Every year, thousands of wild animals are injured or orphaned in Canada, while the habitat and very existence of others is threatened by human activity. Roxanne Willems Snopek tells the inspiring stories of some of these amazing creatures and the dedicated and compassionate people who care for them. Wildlife rescue centres help many of our urban animal neighbours, from the tiniest baby songbirds to skunks, raccoons, opossums and rabbits.

Other concerned volunteers work on the edge of the wilderness. In the Alberta foothills, a few passionate advocates fight to protect dwindling bands of wild horses. Residents of Churchill, Manitoba, watch over the magnificent beluga whales and polar bears of the region. A wildlife centre in Golden, BC, strives to educate people about the vital environmental importance of the wolf. These heartwarming tales of rescue, rehabilitation and conservation are sure to delight all animal lovers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Heritage House
• Release date: Apr 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781927527290

Roxanne Willems Snopek

Roxanne Willems Snopek has been writing professionally for two decades and is the author of 8 books and more than 150 articles. Her non-fiction has appeared in a wide variety of publications, from the Vancouver Sun and Reader's Digest to newsletters for Duke, Cornell and Tufts universities. She lives in Abbotsford, BC, surrounded by family and a variety of dogs, cats, birds and fish.

Book preview

HEARTS IN THE WILD

Inspiring Stories of Animal Rescues

ROXANNE WILLEMS SNOPEK

To the many people who selflessly use their abilities and expertise to rescue and rehabilitate wild creatures injured by human activity. The world is a better place because of you.

Contents

PREFACE

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1 An Accidental Foster Mom

CHAPTER 2 Baby Season in the Bird Ward

CHAPTER 3 Wolf Watching

CHAPTER 4 Lionheart

CHAPTER 5 A Tale of Two Bears

CHAPTER 6 Rock and Peep: A Love Story

CHAPTER 7 Saved at Sea

CHAPTER 8 When Polar Bears Come to Town

CHAPTER 9 Wildlife in the Kitchen

CHAPTER 10 The Last Wild Horses in Canada

EPILOGUE

FURTHER READING

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Preface

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

—the lion and the mouse, AESOP, GREEK SLAVE AND FABLE AUTHOR (620–560 BC)

The wildlife stories in this volume span a wide spectrum, and some of them might challenge the reader to think about the definition of wildlife rescue in a new way. It’s a challenging topic, fraught with controversy. Human beings, residing firmly at the top of the food chain as we do, are responsible for the husbandry of our planet and the creatures we share it with. Exactly what this means and how it is best accomplished, however, is a conversation that evolves as continuously as life itself.

Wild animals do not interact with humans by choice; they fear us—and rightly so. We destroy their habitat to build our own. Our highways cut through migratory paths. We want wilderness vacations then cry foul when nuisance animals flock to our garbage. Without a doubt, there would be little need for wildlife rescue and rehabilitation if not for human activity.

So, how does humanity reverse the damage? The answer is simple: we do the best we can with what we have.

During the First World War, a young man purchased an orphaned bear cub from the hunter who’d killed its mother. Was that man wrong? He acted in the best interest of an animal that almost certainly would have perished without him. But what was an act of kindness at the time would today contravene the Canada Wildlife Act, which allows only licensed wildlife rehabilitation experts to care for such animals.

When a lion is seized from a travelling roadside circus and allowed to live out his life with others of his kind in the peaceful confines of a zoo, is he truly rescued? Or is it merely the exchange of one form of prison for another? Here’s a real conundrum: how are captive-bred animals, not native to North America, returned to the wild?

If an opossum is saved from death but unable to return to its natural habitat, was the rescue worth the time and money it took to save it? When such an animal provides an educational opportunity for children, is it not a life well saved?

Some rescues are achieved not by what we do, but by what we don’t do. Nature conservancy attempts to ensure that wild animals remain in their natural habitat, without human interference, to live—and die—as nature intended. Wildlife sanctuaries are a sort of pre-emptive rescue. But, given that the world is no longer pristine, is there even such a thing as a natural environment anymore? How can humanity be hands-off when our fingerprints are everywhere?

During the writing of this book, I was reminded of a story attributed to the American anthropologist, science writer, essayist and poet Loren Eiseley. Part of an essay Eiseley first published in 1969 in The Unexpected Universe, this parable has been adapted and retold many times since then:

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out, Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?

The young man paused, looked up and replied, Throwing starfish into the ocean.

I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean? asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them in, they’ll die.

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can’t possibly make a difference!

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, It made a difference for that one.

This book is about starfish throwers, people who have come face-to-face with animals the rest of us only read about. Some are professional wildlife rehabilitators. Some are ordinary people like you and me with stories of unusual encounters that have touched them or changed the way they think about wildlife. All are people who care deeply for the animals in their lives.

There are no answers hidden in this book—I leave fixing the world’s problems to minds far more nimble than mine. I’m a storyteller. My hope is only that each reader will discover some small truth in my words—that each of us might be nudged to compassion for our fellow travellers, human and non-human, and that we might each strive daily to make a difference, however small.

No act of kindness is ever wasted.

Prologue

BY THE TIME SHE WAS dropped off at the wildlife shelter, it was too late. Dried blood stained her bristly white guard hairs, matting the dark fur below. The lips above the long, narrow muzzle were pulled back in a final grimace, exposing daunting canine teeth. She was a young opossum, hit during a nocturnal roadside ramble by a passing motorist. She’d dragged herself to cover at the side of the road, but it was probably hours before a kind-hearted good Samaritan found her and rushed her to the shelter. Now, as early morning sunshine streaked the sky, the last spark of life left her broken body.

Elizabeth laid her out on a soft towel and examined her quickly. Time was, after all, of the essence. The prehensile tail lay still, its furless skin cool to the touch. Eyes once dark and glistening stared sightlessly, half-closed and dull. The woman manipulated the opossum’s limbs, now flopping limply, and felt through the fur over the soft, still-warm abdomen, searching, probing. There. That’s what she was looking for.

Through a vertical opening in the opossum’s belly, she felt a quiver of movement: babies. They’d survived the impact. She gently removed them from their mother’s body and laid them in a warming basket, tiny pink hairless creatures no bigger than mice. She shook her head. They were living embryos, needing the warmth, security and rich milk found within their mother’s pouch for several more weeks at least. Could she give them what they needed? Or would they suffer the same fate as their mother?

She gave a last stroke to the dead mother and turned her attention to the living. She’d done it before. With any luck, she’d do it again. But these babies were so young; could any of them become strong enough to make it back to the wild?

All she could do was try.

CHAPTER

1

An Accidental Foster Mom

WHERE ARE THEY? ELIZABETH MELNICK looked at the cage that, last night, had contained two orphaned opossum babies. It was now empty.

She checked beneath the bedding and inside the little box where they could hide, but they were simply gone. She couldn’t think what might have happened. They were housed in the upper tier of a bank of stainless steel kennels, the same place she’d safely housed scores of orphaned opossums and other wild animals over the years. Even if the orphans had been able to fit between the bars, the smooth metal was too slippery for the youngsters to gain purchase to climb down.

The pair still required feeding, so Elizabeth knew that by this time they’d be hungry, if not injured. She searched the small building from top to bottom, but they were nowhere to be found. Finally, she could no longer put off her usual morning chores and had to give