A Wildlife Rescue Service with animal drop-offs, educational programs and volunteer opportunities.
The G.O.T. Team asked Education Coordinator, Laura Hackett, from Liberty Wildlife: What is the procedure when someone calls with an animal emergency? Below are the steps that Liberty Wildlife takes for animal rescue and rehabilitation, generously written by Laura Hackett.
Our hospital is run very much like a human hospital. When kids are running around outside and fall and hurt themselves, they are transported by family or an ambulance to a hospital. That’s very similar to the animals in the wild. We depend on the public to find sick, injured and orphaned wildlife and either transport them to Liberty Wildlife on their own OR, if it’s a more dangerous animal with talons, claws or sharp teeth, we can send out a rescue/transport volunteer to pick the animal up. They travel all around Arizona helping to rescue wildlife.
Once the animal is brought to Liberty Wildlife, it goes through out Intake window. This is similar to the intake at a hospital where they gather your personal information. We enter information into our computer system: species, best guess at age, best guess as to what is wrong or what happened, if any treatment has been given and the cross streets it was found.
Then the animal is taken to a triage room. Much like the human hospital, the animals are assessed by our medical team. These volunteers have taken an extra class at Liberty Wildlife and learned on the job how to stabilize a patient and come up with a game plan of how to treat it to get it back to the wild. They learn how to wrap legs and wings, give medicine for pain and inflammation and numerous other things to help the animal feel better.
Once the animal is stabilized, it moves to one of a few rooms. Our ICU is where the more critical patients will stay to get daily care from our volunteers. Daily fresh water, clean cages and fresh food that is weighed to make sure the animal is eating enough. They also have medical treatment during this time. Another room is our orphan care room if this is a baby bird that just needs to grow. Our volunteers here feed them during their 4 hour shifts – and in the spring (baby season), it’s a non-stop job! If it’s a baby raptor that just needs to grow, it can be placed outside in a foster enclosure to be raised by adults of the same species. This is to ensure that the bird learns how to be a wild bird and not dependent on or comfortable around humans.
After time in the ICU, once the animal feels better, we cannot simply release it. It has been in a small enclosure for a good amount of time and needs to regain it’s muscles that it uses to survive in the wild. So we have pre-release enclosures on our rehabilitation side which provides them enough space to build those muscles back up – similar to a physical therapy regime that humans use after injury.
Finally, the best part of the job, the animal gets released back into a suitable and safe habitat where it can return to its normal wild life.
Photo credits to Liberty Wildlife. For more photos check out their Instagram page here.
To find out more on Liberty Wildlife's services and programs, including visiting the animals, click here.
For information on non-emergency inquires, reach out to Liberty Wildlife at info@libertywildlife.org
For help with wildlife the hotline is (480-998-5550)
Liberty Wildlife is located at 2600 E Elwood St. in Phoenix, AZ 85040