>>The Wildlife Center of Virginia is one of the world's leading teaching and research hospitals for wildlife and conservation medicine.

Each year, the center provides state-of-the-art veterinary and rehabilitative care for nearly 3000 wild animals with one goal in mind, returning the animal to its natural habitat.

(upbeat music) >>Across North America, we're truly blessed with a wonderful diversity of wildlife.

Every single state has a unique blend of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, flora.

It gives each state its character and makes the environment a wonderful place to pass the time.

But a lot of those animals from time to time end up in trouble, usually because of encounters with humans or the things that humans do.

Fortunately, there are also thousands of people across the United States who have taken the time to acquire the skills and the permits to assist those animals in need, whether they're orphans, injured, disabled, or simply displaced.

These people are called wildlife rehabilitators, and they operate in a great diversity of settings.

A lot of them just operate from their homes, in their backyards with a few cages where they take care of a handful of animals.

Some of them operate in nature centers or in connection with colleges and universities.

And a few, like my organization, the Wildlife Center of Virginia, are truly professional wildlife hospitals, and a teaching hospital at that.

We have students come from all over the world, to learn to apply general veterinary skills to the very specific world of wildlife and conservation medicine.

And in a year's time, we'll take in about 3000 patients, and they represent about 150 species.

Well, those animals don't come in all on their own.

It's typically a caring member of the public who finds the animal and brings it in, a true Good Samaritan.

And as a result, they are finding the animals where people spend most of their time, in their yards, around their homes, or businesses, or on the farm.

So most of the species that we get in a year's time are relatively common, squirrels, rabbits, songbirds, or the kinds of animals that are frequently hit by cars, such as hawks, and owls, or opossums.

Well, from time to time, we are thrown a curve.

We get mostly common species, but we have to be ready for the one we least expect.

We're ready for everything from hummingbirds to black bears, but there are some strange ones in between.

(soft music) While the Wildlife Center has to be ready to take care of any one of the 150 or so species we will admit every year, most of our facilities, most of our equipment is really aimed at the more common species, the ones we get by the hundreds.

But when we get unusual animals, a lot of times it requires some improvising.

When we improvise for some of them, it means special medical equipment.

But for others, it means special enclosures, special handling, and special care.

That's especially true with beavers.

Now, a lot of times when the water in rivers like this comes out of its bank, perhaps after a period of heavy rain, the dens and the underground boroughs of aquatic animals will become flooded.

Those animals end up forced out onto the land, and that gets them in trouble.

Some are hit by cars.

Some of the young ones are simply washed downstream.

Now, if they end up in a hospital for care because of an injury or simply because they're orphaned, it requires a lot of improvising to provide habitat, food, and the right kind of enclosure.

Beavers can be as much as 50 pounds, the largest rodents in North America.

They have incisors that are quite literally like wood chisels, razor sharp and able to chew down a tree.

It takes a really special care to handle that animal in a way that is safe for the animal and safe for the handler.

And at the Wildlife Center, we make it happen, and our team makes it look easy.

>>The Wildlife Center of Virginia usually admits one to two beavers a year.

That could be an injured or ill adult beaver or an orphaned baby beaver, also known as a kit.

Beavers have a really interesting and special natural history.

They're a highly aquatic animal, so it's important to take that into consideration when housing them.

But they're also a close knit family group.

So they actually live together with a monogamous breeding pair and then two litters, the litter from the current year and then the litter from the previous year.

So they do everything together.

They forage together, and they take care of their young, and they uphold their little ecosystem and their dams that they build.

The young beaver kits are highly cared for, not only by the parents, but also those yearling beavers.

They're a highly affectionate species, so they're constantly grooming those new babies, licking them and grooming through their fur, and that is a crucial part in their development as well.

So whenever you house a beaver, you've have to take in all of these aspects.

So it's important to know that you're going to have these beavers if they're young for at least two years.

That's a long-term commitment.

You have to have housing that is suitable for that young initial baby stage all the way up until that juvenile two-year stage before they can be released.

Another consideration is that they need constant access to water, not just in the summertime, but also in the wintertime.

It needs to be unfrozen water that is clean all throughout the day.

So if you have to change that tub three, four times a day, then that's what you do.

They swim constantly.

They eat in the water, and they also defecate in the water only.

So this is a crucial part of the rehab process.

Additionally, feeding them is special compared to other rodents or mammals.

They eat leaves and twigs, barks, shrubs, aquatic plants, things like that.

So you have to provide them with that natural food.

They're not going to be something that you can substitute with dog food or store-bought greens or vegetables.

You're going to have to go out there and actually browse for them or cut down these trees and shrubs.

And you're going to have to provide that not only during the summer when these resources are ample and plenty, but also in the winter when it's harder to find these resources.

So you have to really take the time to plan to know how you're going to take care of the species all year long.

Beavers are generally docile in nature.

They're not really aggressive.

But for handling them, there are a few considerations that you should take into account.

They have really large round bodies, so you need to be experienced when handling them.

And they're rodents, so their teeth are exceptionally large.

And they can really do quite a hard and dangerous bite.

They can bite through the normal protective gloves that we were in a rehabilitative setting, and they can easily do damage to a human.

Beavers are also special when considering where to release them and when to release them.

Adults can be released year round.

Babies you have to take further into consideration when they naturally depart from their parents.

But the biggest thing about releasing beavers is that you cannot do it in a location where a beaver has already claimed territory.

So it has to be within the county that they came from for permit regulations but also unclaimed territory, and they have about an eight-acre home range.

So that can be quite a large space, so that's challenging.

And making sure that that habitat that they are released in is sourced with plenty of water and plenty of food, and not just food but food that they recognize from being fed while they were in our care.

>>Here in the United States we actually have six species of wild cats.

That's a surprise to many people.

We have two species of big cats, the Jaguar which is occasionally found in southern Arizona, and the mountain lion, which is found throughout many of our western states.

We have also got four species of smaller felines.

The Southwest has the ocelot and the jaguarundi, and the Rocky Mountain states have the magnificent Canadian lynx.

But by far the most common of our wildcat species is the bobcat.

They're found in many states, and they're actually relatively common.

But as you might expect, they're not very commonly found in a wildlife care facility because they avoid people, and getting them into a box can be a challenge.

>>Here at the Wildlife Center of Virginia, sometimes we get some unusual species like bobcats.

But you can imagine that treating a bobcat is not easy.

We cannot just treat it like a normal dog or cat.

We cannot access to them as safe as other animals.

It's not that easy to medicate them.

or just to provide food and water.

Can you imagine just treating an adult bobcat, giving an oral medication?

So how do we do that here at the Wildlife Center of Virginia?

We have a couple of options.

We can just keep it sedated all the time, and the animal will be just sleeping, and that way it will be safe for us and for the animal to just be treating it every day, treat its wounds, provide medical care.

But the other option is better for the animal and for us, and it's to have specialized facilities.

So what we do is we have a special cage where we can move that animal safely to one side or other in that cage.

That way we can access to that area or enclosure safely, while the animal is in the other side.

Then we can clean, we can put food, and then we use some certain tricks to provide medication.

If that medication is not good enough, we also use our knowledge to find a medication that we can inject and will deposit in the tissues of that animal.

And then slowly we'll be releasing day by day, the exact amount of medication that that animal will need for pain relief, or for antibiotics, or other needs for that animal.

Also, we will need to use a specialized surgical material or wound care material so that way we don't need to check that animal every single day.

>>Some of our avian patients in wildlife care facilities are unusual simply because their characteristics are so different from other common birds.

This is especially true for the woodpeckers.

They spend most of their lives hanging on to the side of a tree drumming for insects.

And most of us, it's music in the forest.

I'm lucky I have seven species of woodpeckers nesting right around my forest at home.

But for some people when that woodpecker is out drumming on your metal rain spout at five o'clock in the morning, that bird is not so popular.

And indeed, if they move on to your house, they can punch holes in a big hurry.

So for some folks, having woodpeckers around is not such a great thing.

But when they come in for care, we love them.

They're beautiful birds, but they do require special handling, special food, and special housing.

>>Woodpeckers have a number of unique adaptations, which can make them a challenge to manage in captivity.

They have very strong, sturdy beaks and spongy skulls to help take the impact when they're hammering on trees.

They also have very long tongues with backwards facing barbs.

This is a very great adaptation for when they're trying to extract sap or insects from trees, but can be challenging in captivity.

We need to make sure not to house them on any fabrics that they can get their tongue stuck in as this can cause permanent damage.

Woodpeckers are zygodactyl, which means that they have two toes that face forward and two that face backward.

This is why in the wild, we see woodpeckers clinging to the vertical surfaces of tree trunks, and not perching on the branches like other songbirds.

For this reason, we have to make sure to provide them with vertical surfaces and not round perches like we do other songbirds species.

Woodpeckers also have very stiff tail feathers that help act as a prop when they're climbing up or down tree trunks.

For all of these reasons, we house woodpeckers in specialized wooden enclosures.

We also provide them with tree trunks and hide their food in the crevices or cavities of these tree trunks so that they can forage like they would in the wild.

Most species of woodpeckers spend their time in the trees, but some species, such as the northern flicker, spends most of its time foraging for ants on the ground.

(soft music) >>Every year at the Wildlife Center of Virginia we admit about 3000 wild patients.

About 48% of those are birds, about 45% are mammals, six or 7% are reptiles, mostly turtles, a lot of which have been hit by cars, and a few snakes thrown in.

But one 10th of 1% of our patient load each year is made up of amphibians, several species of frogs, a few species of toads, with the occasional salamander showing up.

Now, we're happy to help these animals because amphibian populations worldwide are facing a lot of pressure.

In some parts of the world, there have been losses of as much as 90% of the amphibian populations with entire species of frogs and toads being lost to extinction.

Why is that?

Well, lots of reasons.

Climate change is certainly a very, very big factor now and certainly will be more in the future.

Deforestation that allows sunlight to penetrate and hit the forest pools in which amphibians have been breeding for centuries.

Many of these species don't have the enzyme in their body that allows their skin to be resistant to UV light, and the sunlight simply kills them.

We are also seeing pollution issues and the dredging and filling of wetlands, like this beautiful spring-fed wetland behind me.

Areas like this are critically important to amphibian populations.

Amphibians begin their life cycle in the aquatic world, laying their eggs typically in the water, in a pool, in a stream, or even in a wet area in the forest.

Then, as they grow, as they mature, they make the transition from the aquatic environment to the terrestrial environment.

And wow, that's a miracle in and of itself.

It makes them vulnerable to all the problems we have with water and all the problems we have on land.

Now, the animals that come to the Wildlife Center are typically victims of far more mundane issues.

For amphibians, we get a lot of them that are hit by cars found on the road, some that are injured in the garden as people are tilling or plowing their land.

And a lot of them are simply attacked by cats, and that is a very difficult challenge.

But with each and every one, we do our best.

>>The Wildlife Center of Virginia also receives a few unusual species, local amphibians.

I really like amphibians as a veterinarian, but I'm always wondering why people doesn't bring amphibians too often to our center.

If we are are lucky, sometimes we receive one to four amphibians per year, and that sometimes surprises me.

The ones that we get sometimes are because of cat attacks.

Sometimes a cat goes out, finds a frog or a toad, and of course people will see them injured and will bring them to us.

People doesn't realize that if they find a frog or a toad in their pool, for example, that animal may be intoxicated with chlorine, and that may be true.

You are putting bleach or chlorine and other chemicals in your pool to keep it clean, to be safe for you to swim in it, to don't accumulate bacteria, to prevent some algae to accumulate and some mold to accumulate in your pool.

And that may be toxic for the amphibians.

Amphibians have a specialized skin, and everything gets absorbed through their skin.

So we need to make sure that we wash our gloves, and we need to make sure that those gloves have no toxins, and the water that we use has no chlorine, and it has a balanced Ph.

So that's the first thing that we need to make sure before we started a physical exam.

During our physical exam, every single instrument that we use is to be perfectly clean because every single thing that will touch that amphibian may be intoxicating it or may get absorbed through the skin, or the mouth, or the little legs and hands of these little frog or these little toad.

So we are really careful about those tiny things.

But one amazing thing about amphibians is that we can also medicate them through the skin.

We can take advantage of that.

So they can get intoxicated, but we can also medicate them through that.

So if we have to give fluids, I just have to soak it.

If I have to give a pain relief medication, sometimes I just have to soak it in the medication, or just spread the medication in the skin.

So that way it's easier for us, less stressful for the animal.

(soft music) >>Because a facility like ours receives 150 species of wildlife each year, and no two years have the same 150 species, one of the first challenges we face is figuring out what species we're dealing with when someone calls for assistance or advice.

They may have found an animal, but you can't always count on what the caller is telling you about that animal.

The snakes are always bigger on the phone, the birds are always more dangerous, and sometimes the descriptions are pretty lacking.

When an animal comes in the door, it's not always easy to tell even then.

And especially in baby season, when we get tiny little birds that have just emerged from the nest and from the egg, and they don't look like much.

They're just little pink things, and we have to wait until the feathers come out.

But for some of the calls, it's really challenging, and our front desk staff has to do some real detective work.

(phone ringing) >>Wildlife Center of Virginia, this is Caroline, how can I help you?

>>I have found a baby squirrel in my screened in porch.

Can you take it?

>>We can certainly work together to find the best care for that animal.

Can you tell me if you see any injuries?

And does the animal have any fur?

>>It doesn't look injured, but it's a baby.

It's a little furry, but its eyes are closed.

I don't think it can be alone.

>>Let's try to determine for sure what species this is so that we can try and reunite it with its mother if we can.

Does the animal have a long, skinny tail and black toenails?

>>I'm not sure.

My husband's putting it in a box.

>>Can you email me a photo of the animal?

There are a few species that looks similar at a young age.

Once we make sure we know what species it is, we can determine what we should do next.

>>Yes, I can do that now.

Where do I send it?

>>Send it to wildlife@wildlifecenter.org.

As soon as I received the photo and make a positive ID I can call you back.

>>Okay, thank you.

>>Yeah, talk to you soon.

Bye bye.

>>It can be really tough to identify wild species of animals, especially small rodents that people find in their yard.

Some of them can look really similar, like mice, and voles, shrews, and moles.

But all of these species have their own special natural history that is very specialized to that animal, so that natural history is going to provide us with what type of food we should be feeding them and how often, how we should house them, and even where and when we should release them.

So getting that proper identification is crucial to the rehabilitation plan.

Several species of small mammals can easily be confused with one another.

Mice, shrews, moles, and voles are all species of underground mammals that can be easily confused, but moles and shrews aren't even rodents like mice and voles are.

But these species can be confused by the public that bring them in thinking that potentially they're chipmunks or even baby squirrels.

The underground mammals species, even though some of them are rodents and others are not, they are all similar in the fact that they're a prey species.

They love to remain hidden and out of sight, so they'll either live underground or in really like thick vegetation or leaf litter.

And because of their nature as a prey species, they're extremely stressful, and we have to take that into consideration in a rehab setting.

We want to limit their stress as much as possible.

This is especially important because unfortunately that stress can kill an animal alone.

Proper identification of the species is important for their care, especially their diet.

For example, moles are primarily insectivores.

They eat almost exclusively earthworms.

And then voles will eat more things like roots and seeds.

And while shrews, they eat insects, they have a massive requirement for food every day.

So they actually eat up to 100% of their body weight in food, and they need to eat about every hour.

So missing one meal for them could mean their death, so it's really important that you provide them with adequate food and as soon as possible.

So they're one of the few species that we will actually tell the public to feed before they even bring them to us.

An interesting fact also is that shrews are Virginia's only venomous mammals, so that's how they catch and kill their prey, inject a little venom to stop them.

If you were to get bitten by a shrew, it's really it's not a problem.

It may cause some irritation and painful swelling, but it's really no harm to humans.

(soft music) >>This is Hudson, our education gyrfalcon.

Hudson joined our team of education ambassadors in 2018.

And we don't know his full history, but we do know that he hatched in captivity and was used as a falconry bird for a number of years before he retired as an education bird at a different facility.

When we had the opportunity to add Hudson on to our team of animal ambassadors, we had to consider it for a little bit.

We typically add in native Virginia wildlife because we like to show people animals that they might see in their own backyards and surrounding areas.

So gyrfalcons are not a typical species that we would find here in Virginia.

In the wild, they live and breed in Arctic and sub-Arctic climates, so they're found in Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and Russia, and they would be extremely rare visitors to Virginia.

That being said, in 1984, a wild gyrfalcon was found in Virginia, and it was injured, so it came to the Wildlife Center.

And we have the first state record of this species in Virginia.

And since then, two more wild gyrfalcons have been seen in the state.

So it's not impossible to see them this far south, but they are definitely an unusual species.

Hudson has been a lot of fun to get to know.

We've been working with him for the past year, and he's proven to be a very smart and curious and also very loud and talkative education bird.

But we've really enjoyed getting to know him and getting to share him and his story and this species with people throughout Virginia.

>>The thousands of people across North America are often called upon to do some unusual things at a minute's notice when that rare or unusual patient comes in the door.

But on an everyday basis, there are things that you can do.

First of all, get to know the wildlife in your neighborhood.

Lists of local species are available from your state wildlife agency, perhaps your local library or a nature center.

And if all else fails, turn to the internet.

It's really interesting to know the diversity of wild neighbors you have.

Now, if you find an animal that you believe needs your help, maybe it's an orphan, maybe it's injured, or in some other form of distress, the first thing you should do is seek advice.

Call someone who knows.

Find out in advance who your local wildlife rehabilitators are.

Get the number of your local wildlife agency and put it in your phone.

And don't hesitate to call these people if you encounter a situation about which you're not sure.

Because a lot of times what looks like a problem may not be and intervention is not necessary.

But if you do think you need to intervene, one of the things you can do to help resolve the situation most quickly is pull out your phone, take a photo of the animal or the situation.

And when you call that agency or that wildlife rehabilitator, send the photo, and they can tell you very quickly what the animal is, how to safely catch it if it can be done, and how you should react to that situation.

And above all, take the time to remember your personal decisions and the impact they can have on wildlife.

We often talk about littering, and that is a problem.

But there are other things.

The use of chemicals around your home, the way you manage your landscape, the way you manage your pets, all of these can have very profound impacts on your wild neighbors, and simply taking the moment to consider what those impacts can be will be better for you and better for all things wild.

(upbeat music)