One Animal At a Time
It is a hard world for baby animals under the best of circumstances but with humans increasingly encroaching upon their habitats it becomes harder every year. Each spring, wildlife rehabilitators are inundated by helpless creatures, orphaned or injured, and destined without intervention for miserable deaths.
Fortunately there are people, passionate in their concern for animal welfare, who are willing to commit treasure, talent and time to restoring these unfortunates to health. The ultimate goal is to release the creatures back into their own world, restored and ready to live the life nature intended.
June 16th saw the official inauguration of the expanded Lucky Rehabilitation Center (LRC) in Spencertown NY, a facility founded in 2021 by Maria Geel, now 19, and her mother, Susan, where they care for a flood of creatures ranging from tiny infant squirrels and rabbits to larger animals such as deer. At present LRC is the only wildlife center in Columbia County certified to care for larger mammals.
It is a labor of love for both Geels and one that Maria first undertook at a time when many little girls are interested only in playing with dolls. Maria, who is studying wildlife medicine at Paul Smith’s College and intends to become a vet, was only 7 or 8 years old when she became inspired by the rehabilitation work being done by Jane Beavan, a Ghent NY rehabilitator. Both Maria and her mother volunteered to work with Beavan.
Fired by her experience with Beavan and her personal foray at age 6 into rescuing an abandoned Canada goose gosling she named Lucky, Maria persuaded her mother to renew her rehabilitator license. She even agreed to give up the playroom in their home for use as a rehabilitation center.
It wasn’t a passing whim. At age 12 she established a nonprofit dedicated to the care and rehabilitation of injured, orphaned and sick wildlife. At age 16, she got her own license, the youngest age at which it is allowed, and later established a gofundme page to help expand their center.
At that time, she reported on their progress. “We … have had an extremely successful first year,” she told potential donors. “We have taken in over one hundred animals with an approximate success rate of 70 percent compared to the state average of 40 percent. Next spring we plan to open bigger than ever and equipped to handle many more animals.”
Those plans included renovating a barn on their property to include large outdoor pens, flight rooms and stalls. She set an initial fundraising goal of $2,000 (easily surpassed) and said that the center would partner with larger corporations to raise more money. Among the major donors have been Herrington’s Lumber, which donated all the wood, F.H. Stickles, which poured the foundation free of charge, Kneller Insurance, ACP Power Equipment, the Berry Farm and Tractor Supply.
Today the newly refitted barn has an examination room, a room with several incubators, an indoor shelter for fawns, a preparation area and another semi-open area where foxes and an adult possum have been boarded.
As they famously say in the movie, Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.” And come they have. About 500 orphaned or injured animals have been rehabilitated and returned to their natural habitat, typically on the 13 acres the Geels own or in the nearby state forest.
On any given day in spring or early summer, they may have 30 gaping mouths to feed, many of them by bottle. When the LCR held its ribbon-cutting in June, visitors were introduced to 12 orphaned white-tail fawns, a pair of baby opossums named Pete and Bobby, a baby woodchuck named Gabe, a pair of baby rabbits labeled the Dynamic Duo, a litter of newborn rabbits that were being tube-fed, a kit fox, two adult opossums and a starling.
Maria finds intense satisfaction in her work. “Today, in a rare moment of free time, I decided to quietly sit with my camera and watch our fawns mill about; grazing on clover and frequently stopping to interact with each other,” she wrote on her engaging Facebook page. “It brings me unimaginable joy to be able to be witness each individual personality coming to life in that pen. … Yes, I’ll speak frequently of release statistics, numbers and charts but seeing each success story as a whole being, filled with playfulness and compassion, gives a new and profound meaning to ‘one animal at a time.’”
Her page is filled with tales of successes and the occasional sadness of loss. But ultimately the goal is to be in loco parentis for the shortest time possible. “We don’t want them to like us or get too used to us because they will need be released back into the wild,” she said.
In one posting she speaks of her joy when she could not only release, but also restore, a bird to its parents. “Yesterday was very fulfilling,” she wrote. “One of our favorite days is ‘release day’—the day when we send our patients off into the wild.” She admits to anxiety about the well-being of released animals who have not had the benefit of parental training, says there is no better feeling than returning a baby to its mother. Then, she says, she knows it will be taught “exactly how to live, thrive and survive in the wild!”
Like most rehabbers, she cautions well-intentioned people not to act too quickly in rescuing babies. “We often see fawns around our fields, yards and gardens this time of year,” she advises. “When you see one lying in the grass, your first instinct may be to ‘help’ it. Ninety-nine percent of the time it does not need your help. Its mother put it there and told it to be quiet. They're just doing as they were told, and the mother will come back to feed them a few times each day if you leave them alone.”
There are occasions that call for action, however, and she lists times when intervention is appropriate, such as seeing an obvious injury, knowing the mother is dead, finding an infant covered with flies or maggots or crying for its mother for an 18-hour period. Severe dehydration can be assessed by dull eyes, a dry coat and sometimes, curled ear tips. If any of these signs are present, New York state residents can call LRC at 518-528-4225.
A lot of the animals referred to LRC are infants but they also get adult animals that need care after accidents. They may not be adorable babies with luminous brown eyes, but Geel is quick to advocate for them. She said her favorite species is the opossum, a species that gets a bad rap because of its naked prehensile tail, tiny eyes and less than appealing coat. She, however, sees only the good in this little animal that doesn’t carry diseases (as a marsupial, it can’t get rabies) and eats a lot of ticks. Surprisingly friendly, they tend to look scary but do no harm (unless you’re a tick or a grub).
The Geels are assisted in their work by a half-dozen volunteers and more are always needed. She recited a story that showed the dedication of her assistants. A fawn was brought in that was in crisis. Despite the staff’s best effort, it did not survive. “The motivation for every incredible human being in that room was the well-being of these animals,” she said. “There are those we can’t save but there will always be those that we can. The selflessness that it took for everyone in that room to focus on the good that we can do, even in the midst of loss, is something that I will never underestimate.”
LRC is located at 214 Reed Road in Spencertown; 518-652-0971; facebook page; luckyrehabilitationcenter@gmail.com.
