Audubon Wildlife Care Center tends to sick, injured, orphaned native animals

By Janie Nafsinger

Boom!, Mar 4, 2010, Updated Mar 4, 2010

Jim Clark / Pamplin Media Group

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A native painted turtle struck by a car is on the mend, its broken shell pinned together with picture-hanging wire. An American kestrel, a small falcon, is fattening up after nearly starving on a diet of hamburger.

Feathered, furry, amphibious, the patients at the Audubon Society of Portland Wildlife Care Center arrive with all sorts of trauma. More than 3,000 sick, injured or orphaned native wild animals are cared for and treated every year at the center on Northwest Cornell Road, Oregon’s oldest and largest wildlife rehabilitation center.

Deb Sheaffer, the center’s staff veterinarian and operations manager, and her staff and volunteers also field more than 15,000 wildlife calls annually. Summer, the busiest season, typically sees five to 10 people every day standing at the door, carrying foxes, baby birds, turtles, squirrels and other native animals in cardboard boxes, Sheaffer says.

The center also performs necropsies (animal autopsies) and takes part in studies, including a national study of conjunctivitis, an eye infection in house finches.

“We get 3,000 animals a year here, so we’re a great place to do research,” Sheaffer says.

Educating humans

A big part of the center’s mission is to educate the public about wild animals and how to interact with them. The center offers tips on reducing glare from windows to help prevent birds from flying into the glass; lists reasons why raising a wild animal isn’t a good idea; and warns of the consequences of letting housecats roam outdoors.

“About 40 percent of the injured animals end up here because a domestic housecat got hold of them,” Sheaffer says. “A cat-caught bird has less than a 20-percent chance of surviving; the cause of death often is infection resulting from a cat bite.”

People who have the best of intentions when they try to help wild animals can do more harm that good, Sheaffer says. The American kestrel’s story is an example: A man had been raising the bird and her nest mate, thinking he was doing the right thing by feeding them ground beef. But the meat “lacked the calcium and other vitamins that they get from eating a whole animal,” Sheaffer says.

The birds became so malnourished, one died, and the other ended up with a malformed beak. The survivor is rebuilding her strength on a diet of mice and nutritional supplements at the Wildlife Care Center, where she is now a permanent resident. She is one of the center’s eight “education” birds — “they can’t be released because of injuries or because they’re imprinted on people,” Sheaffer says.

Volunteers ‘are the greatest’

Sheaffer, 51, joined the care center’s staff six years ago following 15 years of volunteering there. She also works at a veterinarian clinic in Milwaukie.

With a staff of 1-1/2, Sheaffer relies on volunteers — handymen, college students, homemakers, retirees, professionals, even other veterinarians — to help care for the animals, assist with research and educate the public about wildlife.

The center has an estimated 65 active volunteers who commit to four hours a week, plus another 20 who work on special projects. About 40 are trained bird handlers who show the education birds to visitors and take them to camps, schools and elsewhere.

Fortunately, the center has no trouble attracting volunteers — in fact, there’s a waiting list for them, Sheaffer says.

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