October 25, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Nearby Center a real life- saver for injured animals
by  MICHAEL McQUOWN

These cute masked bandits are becoming more common in city backyards as their natural habitat is destroyed more and more to make way for housing developments and shopping centers.

Behind the antenna array in upper Roxborough, just across Ridge Avenue from the Andorra Shopping Center, deep in the woods, is a place where heroes strive and miracles are performed daily.

No capes, no masks — unless you count the surgical kind — more like blue jeans, khakis and cargo pants. This is the Schuylkill Wildlife Rehabilitation Center where Rich Schubert, a handful of professionals and 50 volunteers save over 3000 wild animals a year. It services Philadelphia, Delaware, Chester and Montgomery counties.

Schubert calls himself a ‘wildlife rehabilitation expert,’ a title for which no school issues a degree. He started with a degree as a wildlife biologist, and acquired the other skills as he went – a little veterinary medicine, a little wildlife management, habitat control and sundry other skills necessary to do the job.

It’s a tough job, one that requires hard work, dedication, faith and hope, and one that  gets little  charity. The center is always short of what they need. People bring in lots of animals, but often can offer little money. It costs on average $33 a week to care for one animal.

I myself took 10 raccoons there which I had trapped on my front porch, which really stretched the Center’s resources, but I was quite impressed with their work and their volunteers’ dedication. Fortunately, thanks to a fine diet of cat food, the raccoons were all healthy, and were released on the grounds. None was harmed in the process.

What impressed me the most? The fact that so many people are willing to put so much into the effort. Their facility is small, but it holds a lot. The hours are long, but nobody complains. The volunteers are willing to do whatever it takes. I am sure the professionals there aren’t getting rich, either. Animal people are like that.

The unit itself is a small building which houses incubators, treatment rooms, recovery rooms, a small surgery room where  veterinarians donate their services and, sadly, a euthanasia section. As Schubert points out, there are only two options with injured wildlife: a quick fix, which will require a short recovery period, or euthanasia. Long-term recovery for wild animals is nearly impossible, even with the best of facilities, because the patients don’t cooperate; they don’t understand what is going on.

The Center is not a dumping ground for unwanted wild ‘pets.’ For the most part, the  animals have been either injured or abandoned, as in the case of a peacock, which was found in a public park. Other animals have come from back yards, abandoned properties and powerlines, but many come from the side of the road, hit by cars, probably the deadliest weapon on the planet, since they pollute the atmosphere as well as run over animals. The annual roadside deer kill far exceeds the national limit for hunting, and these deaths are often slow and painful, not to mention the damage to cars and their passengers.

Some of the animals are what you’d expect: rabbits, squirrels, the occasional opossum or raccoon. When this writer visited, there was a very plump and happy skunk running through the hallways. But others are far more exotic. Schubert says the two Peregrine falcons they have had there are the most exotic. As of this writing, they have a black vulture in residence.  Behind the main building are a number of outbuildings which house recovery areas and cages for different species, and an isolation block for animals which may carry rabies. Once the animals are cleared, they are moved elsewhere.

Schubert cites human encroachment and the destruction of habitat as the worst single cause of wild animal injury. Every development and every shopping mall wipes out the homes of many species. Wild animals are now having to survive in the suburbs, which gives us coyotes in Roxborough and raccoons in nearly every neighborhood. One visitor reported hawks in Mt. Airy.

People today are suffering from what Schubert calls ‘Nature Deficit Disorder.’ They do not understand and appreciate the role of wildlife in the planetary ecosystem. Bats, for example, serve two vary important functions: they pollinate many species of plants and  eat tons of insects — especially mosquitoes — every year. Raptors devour many species of rodents that are destructive to crops and human habitation. As human populations move into animal habitats, creatures such as deer are reduced  — at least in human eyes — from noble forest animals to garden pests. (I grew up in an area where people still butchered their own meat, ate their own chickens’ eggs and harvested their own crops. People in big cities often have little understanding of swhere their cellophane-wrapped steaks come from. I find it fascinating that there is actually a farm school on Henry Avenue that many people pass every day without knowing what’s there.)

Another thing that makes the Schuylkill Center special is the fact that they take all species. Other similar operations throughout the state limit the types of animals they will take in, some even specializing in just one species.

The rehabilitation facility is an outgrowth of the original Schuylkill Valley Nature Center, founded in 1960 by Rick James. The rehabilitation center was begun in 1987 by Trish O’Connell, and operated out of a barn for 10 years before the new building opened in 1997. The rehabilitation unit is funded independently of the original Schuylkill Center.

Another function of the unit is education. There is a traveling program which Schubert will gladly send around to any civic, educational, fraternal or other group which is interested. Like the facility itself, it is not well known, which is something that needs to be changed.

The unit, as stated earlier, is funded separately from the parent body, and they are always in need: of money, volunteers and supplies. High on their wish list are things like paper towels, Eukanuba dry kitten chow, latex gloves, disposable injections needles, 1cc syringes and trash bags.

Finally, one has to ask where this will go. Schubert sees expansion in the near future, but fears that, ultimately, it is a losing battle, and that man will overrun nature. But at what price? These committed people at the Center feel that it is not a matter of choice. They can’t choose their fight, but fight it, they will. And we should all be glad they are willing to do so.

The Schuylkill Center is located at 8480 Hagy’s Mill Rd. For more information and directions to the Center, call 215-482-7300 or visit www.schuylkillcenter.org.