Release

      All of the animals in the clinic are under a great deal of stress. When wild animals are locked up, they often panic from a predator/prey relationship and being in pain from their injury never helps. It's why you can't rehab adult deer, they will panic so much that they will slam themselves against the sides of their enclosure until they die. Cottontails can die just from the stress of being enclosed, even the babies. Baby cottontails will be doing just fine and could be just a couple days from release until you come in the next morning to find them dead. We do have ways of trying to lower the stress, we don't handle the animals more than necessary, we keep the cages covered, and we aren't supposed to baby talk the animals. A couple of the interns still do, and it's annoying as hell. (side note: Why would hell be annoying? There's no WiFi. No really, my dad freaked out over it)
      In training, this is how our supervisor put it: If you are locked in the attic of a serial killer, listening to every sound and wondering if it's the last thing you hear, then the door opens and the killer starts baby talking you while stroking your hair, would that be comforting? Hell. No. That's what it feels like for an adult wild animal to be handled and talked to.
      I'd like to think that the stress is all worth it when the animal finally gets released with a healed wing, spinal injury, or another ailment. Every other week or so, a sheet goes up with the case numbers of the animals, and the places for them to be released. Often everyone just takes an animal when the location of release is on their way home. We do our best to release them as close to where a person found them as possible because they may already have established territories. Or with turtles, they have a GPS in their head that no matter how far they are from their home pond, no matter how many busy roads they have to cross to get back to it, will make them try to get back.
      The first animal I released was an opossum with an amputated tail from frostbite. It had a large cauliflower stub in place of its tail. I walked off the road into the woods ways before shaking it out of the carrier. It immediately started waddling back towards the road we just came from and I stomped around, making loud growly noises to make it go the other way. As I drove off I noticed three hawks circling the field next to the forest I had just released it in. Whether it lived or gets eaten, an animal was still helped.
      Yesterday I set out to release a goose that had had a spinal injury, and who was understandably pissed at being forcibly put in a carrier. He had been with us a very long time, and I was sure he would be happy to finally be on his way. He had been found in a graveyard next to a lake, and there were a lot of people as the graveyard was next to a playground and the whole area was like a community park to hang out and go swimming. I had to shake the goose out of its cage and it fell into the water. Once it got its bearings, it honked what I can only imagine was a death sentence at me and started paddling my way with a fierce determination. That's when I got out of there, sure it would be fine just as soon as it found a new flock.
       Driving away with my windows down for the hot summer breeze, my music blasting with the clear blue sky ahead I thought, today is a good day to be set free.