Rescuing Wild Animals and Living to Tell About It

By Bob Anderson

Many years ago I started rescuing wild animals from environments that were hazardous to their well being. In the beginning it was a fairly uncomplicated venture. All that was required was to locate the creature, pick it up, take it home and do what I could to get it healthy and releasable. Each rescue I attempted seemed to get more complex because I quickly learned that my knowledge base of the animal and its needs was very limited. For example, I couldn't just find the creature and pick it up until I had some idea how the animal might react to my presence and I had no idea of the hazards involved in trying to pick up an angry, scared wild animal. Throughout each rescue and attempted rehabilitation the processes seemed to become more complex and dangerous. A lot of my knowledge gaps were fill through [sometimes painful] in the field experience. The area of Rehabilitation proved to be equally complex and confusing. To help solve the many mysteries I turned to the written literature. I can readily remember wishing for a reference book to serve as an operations manual for the rescue industry. Such a book did not exist. There were many references, but none all inclusive or comprehensive. In an attempt to assist the industry, we began documenting and publishing technical bulletins of our many procedures. After several years, we found it necessary to bring in new employees and figure out how to train them. In response we opened a wildlife rescue academy. We compiled all our in the field knowledge with the many technical bulletins we had published and created a student training manual for Wildlife Rescue and another for Wildlife Rehabilitation. These manuals served the company, the students and the animals very well. In 2017 a decision was made to memorialize these manuals into the long overdue reference book to serve as an operations manual for the rescue industry. The Wildlife Rehabbers Handbook has been well tested and proven, developed over many years of research and experience and are easy to use, comprehensive and technically accurate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Krittergitters
• Release date: Aug 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781642556148

Bob Anderson

Bob Anderson has had a life divided between the ‘normal’ world in secondary education and the extraordinary world of photojournalism in Nicaragua, Cambodia, the Philippines and Burma. In the latter country he spent 20 years building an educational charity in communities suffering from war, poverty and oppression.