Lives dedicated to saving animals

By Vince Patton on September 19, 2009

Saving animals is a full time job.

Sharnelle Fe holds an injured brown pelican

This state has a number of licensed rehabilitation centers specifically geared to nurse injured wildlife back to health.   Sometimes they’ll be healthy enough to return to the wild, other times they’re too domesticated to set free but too wild to treat as pets.

But there’s something that often gets overlooked, even in glowing profiles like the Oregonian’s nice piece on Sharnelle Fee at the Wildlife Center of the North Coast. The central person at many of these centers rarely ever gets a vacation. Most of these centers have at their heart one or two dedicated people. Volunteers come in too.  But the day-in day-out work most often falls on the dedicated person who launched the rehab center.

Sharnelle nurses wild birds back to health.

You’ll see her in the upcoming season of Oregon Field Guide taking care of brown pelicans who suffered frost bite.  (Did you know birds could get frost bite?  Watch our upcoming story to see why.)

A brown pelican lost part of its foot to frostbite

Pelicans nursed back to health are ready for release to the wild.

Cheryl Tuller tends to less-than-domestic felines at Wildcat Haven. Field Guide covered Cheryl’s generous work on behalf of cougars, lynx, bobcats and more a few seasons ago. At both rehab centers there is one central constant: they are never without animals. 365 days a year someone’s got to be there to feed them, and if they’re injured, to tend their wounds.

That never ending task invariably falls to the person who founded the center (an often lives on the same grounds.)   These are people who saw animals in need, often because humans failed them, and have dedicated virtually every waking hour to their care.