Expecting the unexpected
At WildOne, animal care is everyone’s mission. Every morning workers prepare fresh meals to meet each animal’s needs, purchasing some of the ingredients from the market and collecting others on regular trips into the countryside in order to habituate the animals to wild foods, because WildOne’s goal is to rehabilitate and release them, not to keep them in long-term captivity.
Walking through the WildOne Animal Hospital, you can’t help but notice that nearly all of the cages are covered with towels or heavy sheets. Conservation worker Liao Chao-sheng explains that wild animals confined in cages become agitated by people moving around them and anxious because they can’t flee. The covers insulate them from external stimuli, helping keep them calmer.
Putting themselves in the animals’ shoes, WildOne staff have noticed other things that are typically overlooked. When setting up the animal hospital, Chiang decided to call the pantry the “homo sapiens kitchen” and the animals’ feeding area the “wildlife kitchen.” The names are a way of expressing her belief that people and wildlife are equals, that we all live together in this world.
When WildOne receives an injured animal, it first evaluates the injury. If the animal can’t be saved, they euthanize it to end its suffering. If it can be saved, they then determine whether it can be returned to the wild. They consider euthanasia once again if an animal can’t be released back into the wild and WildOne is unable to provide it with an appropriate long-term living environment. Once the hospital has treated an animal, it delivers “in-patient” care until the animal has healed, and then begins training it for a return to the wild.
Liao says that when they evaluate an animal for release, they first determine whether it can move, feed, and conceal itself. An animal must be capable of all three to be a candidate for release. He recalls once treating a crested goshawk that was too weak to stand. Poor circulation had led to some of its toes swelling, turning black, and even dropping off. The goshawk’s condition improved under WildOne’s care, and it grew strong again. Liao eventually decided it was time to return the bird to the wild, and moved it to an outdoor training area. But once there, the condition of the goshawk’s right hallux (its “big toe”) worsened, causing it to favor its left leg. This caused its left foot to become inflamed, leaving it unable to hunt or even perch. Since returning the bird to the wild in this state would have meant leaving it to die, they felt they had no choice but to euthanize it.
Life’s impermanence is an everyday reality at WildOne. The organization cares for creatures with broken bodies on a daily basis, and continues to see animals injured by traps and snares even though such devices are illegal in Taiwan. Yet, despite such frustrations, the workers there remain upbeat, filled with a quiet sense of purpose.
Chi Meng-jou’s mission in life is animal conservation. She recruited partners to found the WildOne Wildlife Conservation Association. (courtesy of WOWCA)