Untamed

(upbeat, uplifting orchestral music) (water gurgling) Funding for Untamed is made possible by.

(birds chirping) (gentle, flowing piano music) The Wildlife Center of Virginia is a hospital for native wildlife.

Each year we treat about 3,700 patients including birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.

Our goal is to release them back to the wild.

But the wildlife center does more than just care for individual animals.

We're actually a teaching and research hospital for native wildlife.

Now you might wonder what do I mean by that?

Well, when we were founded back in 1982, we quickly learned that most of our patients were injured directly, or indirectly as a result of human activity.

When we finalized our mission statement a couple of years later, we decided that teaching would become our primary role.

And our mission literally is teaching the world to care about and care for wildlife in the environment.

Now, one of the other things that makes us different is here at the wildlife center it's not enough just to treat and care for an individual animal.

We want to identify and understand the larger issues affecting not only that individual patient, but wild populations and indeed entire ecosystems.

We then are able to use what we learn through the care of our patients to literally teach the world to care about wildlife.

And to do what's necessary to protect those habitats, and the environment at large.

Since our founding there have been a lot of small discoveries as well as some really major discoveries in the care of our patients.

One eagle for example, led us to an understanding that a major agricultural pesticide was killing millions of birds each year in the United States.

When used according to the label direction that chemical, carbofuran, was simply too dangerous, and too toxic to be safely used.

Well, it was the story of that one eagle that led to a national effort to eventually ban carbofuran for all uses in the United States, and eventually for manufacture and sale internationally.

Now here in the United States, that ban eliminated over two million bird fatalities each year.

Now, it's been about 30 years ago, so there are at least 60 million bird deaths that did not occur, because we used effectively the story of one eagle.

Now, sometimes we're learning about disease organisms.

Like the time one of our interns noticed that seven of our patients had an identical eye infection.

And wasn't a coincidence, they were all the same species.

Well, of course, it wasn't a coincidence at all, it was the outbreak of a new disease.

And because we discovered it early we were able to raise the alarm.

And farmers, especially poultry producers, were cautioned throughout the Eastern United States to watch for these birds and that infection, because flocks could be affected by the same mycroplasma bacteria.

While we do our best to give every patient the chance to recover and return to the wild, there are some that are not so lucky.

The ones that don't survive their injuries, or must be euthanized, because they can't go back to the wild.

While it's always disappointing not be able to release a patient, the story doesn't end simply because their life does.

Even those that can't return to the wild can have a story to share, and they can help us learn, and teach important things about wildlife.

One way or another, all of our patients contribute vital information about their species, about the issues and injuries they confront, and the habitat from which they come.

Whether they become part of a study of wildlife disease, act as donors of feathers or bones for their living counterparts, are used in cultural or religious traditions, or used to teach future scientists and wildlife enthusiasts.

Every single animal passing through these doors has much to contribute, even those that don't survive.

(upbeat, bright acoustic music) Hi, I'm Chief Anne Richardson of the Rappahannock Tribe from Indian Neck in King and Queen county, Virginia.

Nature is the place that we live, and breathe and have our being.

We are all a part of nature.

So we believe that nature is a part of the family of the universe that we depend on each other for our survival.

Our elders teach us to watch various animals that they want us to emulate the character traits of.

And my dad used to take me out in the woods.

He called it hunting, but he was actually just teaching me to watch various animals.

So all the natural resources, are gifts from us from the creator to utilize.

And so if we needed food for our sustenance, we would be able to kill the animal, but we never threw anything away.

We always kept the bones and used them for various things like tools or jewelry.

We would keep the furs and keep, and make those into something that would keep us warm.

And so the life of the animal was never just taken and thrown away.

It was taken and utilized.

We revere the eagle because we believe he's a gift from the Creator given to us to take our prayers to the Creator, as his mighty wings rise up.

And so we use his feathers in our religious ceremonies.

We know that when we go into prayer with these feathers there's a supernatural presence that we are able to communicate with heaven on the prayers and the petitions that we bring before the Creator.

(easy going piano music) The Wildlife Center of Virginia admits about 3,700 patients each year.

We admit and treat all wildlife native to Virginia everything from hummingbirds, to black bears, to bald eagles.

It's important to determine why the patient came to us in the first place in order to serve our mission of teaching the world.

It's not good enough for us just to treat the individual animal.

We also need to keep records of why these animals are coming in, and what was wrong with them in order to better inform how we could prevent them from coming in, in the first place.

An example of this would be birds that come into the center after hitting a window.

This is very common and preventable occurrence.

By documenting and detailing these occurrences, we can bring to attention this issue, and encourage individuals to take preventative and proactive measures to prevent window strikes.

Another example would be lead intoxication.

We test many birds' blood lead on admission, one of those being bald eagles.

Over the years, we've seen that about 2/3 of bald eagles have detectable blood lead levels on admission.

This information has led us to educate the public on the risks of lead ammunition, and encourage a switch to non-lead ammunition.

As a veterinarian, it's important that we learn from every patient that comes in.

this not only helps me be a better veterinarian for the next patient that comes in but also when we share that knowledge helps to improve and develop the field of wildlife rehabilitation.

Even if an animal doesn't make it, we try very hard to ensure we learn from that patient.

This could be including it in one of our various research projects, saving it for a museum specimen, or allowing students to perform a necropsy, or procedure on that patient.

(easy going piano music) My name is Carla Dove, and I am the program manager of the Feather Identification Lab at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

Here at the National Museum of Natural History we have one of the largest bird collections in the world.

Somewhere around 600,000 specimens here.

And we receive these from various sources.

One of our most important sources is birds that are salvaged things that people either find, the public finds and sends to us, or contacts us.

Or wildlife rehab centers like The Wildlife Center of Virginia.

And they are made into museum study scans with all of the information on the labels, the location of the where the bird was collected, or found, the date, and any other information that is important about the scientific data for the specimen.

These specimens are used for all kinds of purposes.

The collection is over 150 years old, so it is like a little time capsule.

If you want to know what birds occurred in what location at a certain time point, we have those.

We have the dates to document that.

They're used primarily for research on the evolution and systematics of birds.

But in our lab, in the feather identification lab, we have a different purpose for the use of these collections.

And we use them to identify birds that have collided with airplanes.

So knowing the species identification is the first step in preventing these kinds of risks from happening.

Once you know what the species of bird is that's causing the problem on the airfield, then the biologist can go out there and do some kind of habitat mitigation to keep the birds and the airplanes apart.

Identifying a species of birds that are hit by airplanes is often like solving a puzzle, and this is where it gets really fun.

So we get the report, and we get a bag of remains attached to the report.

And this is a report from a civil bird strike that occurred in Portland, Maine, and it was August 29th.

And it has all of the information about the aircraft type, the location, the date, what part of the aircraft was struck.

This is an FAA report that can be done online by any pilot, or any airport.

The remains were sent to us in this baggie.

And if you just open up the bag, this is a good example, 'cause it has a lot of feathers.

Sometimes it will include only bird ick, which is what we call snarge.

And snarge is just this icky stuff.

This can be sent to the DNA lab, and an identification could be done using DNA.

But in this case, they actually included a lot of really nice feathers that have some characteristics of spots, they have some streaking.

It looks like we have wing feathers and body feathers.

So from our experience and from using this vast resource here or bird specimens, we can probably get the species identification of this bird right now.

The way we would do that is I would look at this feather, and I would say, "Well what part of the body does it come from?"

Does it look like it's a tail feather or a wing feather?

Are there any characteristics on here that make me think it's one group of birds or the other?

'Cause there are 10,000 species of birds, and you have to narrow this down to one.

So I will go out and pull out a specimen.

And this just so happens to be a salvaged specimen.

And this bird was collected in Charlottesville, Virginia on February 12th.

It was a salvaged bird.

It was received from The Wildlife Center of Virginia.

And it was prepared by one of our preparators who was a volunteer here at the time.

So this specimen of Merlin was salvage prepared by us as a museum study scan.

And now I'm using it to identify what this bird strike is.

So you can see how nicely this feather matches up with this museum study scan.

The little spot on the wing, the coloring, the size of the feather.

And in addition to that wing feather we also have some body feathers that have this little bit of streaking on them.

So you get a perfect match.

So right here before your eyes we've identified this bird strike as a Merlin.

(regal, full orchestral music) Diagnosing the injuries and diseases that affect our individual wild patients is an important aspect in the identification, and understanding of the big picture issues that affect all wildlife, and indeed the environment at large.

Through the center's research and collaboration with many other colleagues and experts in the field, we collect, compile and analyze data that is then shared with people all over the world.

Helping us all learn to help wildlife, improve public policy, and change destructive human behaviors.

(regal full orchestral music) I'm Sonia Hernandez, and I'm a professor in a shared position between the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study.

The Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study is a unit within the Department of Population Health at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Georgia.

And it's basically a diagnostic and research lab.

We serve our federal and state partners, members.

And what that means is that if they have a wildlife health question, or for example, an outbreak that causes mortality in wildlife they send us questions, and or material so that we can help them investigate the problem.

Wildlife mortality investigation would be very similar to a investigation when a person dies, in that what we try to figure out is why did the animal die?

And then the other part that's really important is understanding whether that animal dying has an impact on the population for that species, or if it's a problem that could cause a problem for our domestic animals, including livestock.

Or whether the cause of the death may have a significant public health impact.

When we get material from one of our partners, whether it be a piece of tissue, or an entire carcass oftentimes, you know, if it's a carcass, we'll start with a basic necropsy.

And then we will do what's called histopathology, which is looking at the architecture of the tissues under the microscope.

And then that gives us kind of a clue as to what might have caused the death in that animal.

But often that has to be followed up with a lot of other tests.

So for example, if we suspect a contaminant was involved, then we will have to send out samples to a toxicology lab.

Or if we suspect a virus is involved, maybe we'll have to do some confirmatory tests, like PCR or virus isolation, or something else.

So it usually starts with looking at the tissues of the animal and then it goes from there.

So other reasons for why we get samples from our partners is to help them with irregular surveillance protocol.

So for example, some states want to know the rate of chronic wasting disease in deer in their state.

So they will send us samples.

Or perhaps they're involved in West Nile Virus surveillance, or something of the sort, and we help them with those kinds of surveillance efforts.

Recently, we worked with one of our wildlife rehabilitation collaborators down in South Florida who called us and said, "You know we're receiving these turtles, they're really, really sick.

And they have these lesions around the eyes, and inside the mouth and this doesn't look like some of the things we've seen in the past.

And we're getting lots of them.

We're worried that this might be a new virus that's emerging in turtles.

Can we send you some samples?"

And we worked with the Natural Resource Agency in Florida and received turtles from them.

And sure enough, after doing the necropsy, and histopathology, and some virus isolation, we were able to confirm that the turtles were dying of ranavirus, which is a virus that's recently jumped from amphibians and fish onto turtles.

So obviously, people send us carcasses many times, because they're in the middle of an outbreak.

But many times there there'll be just one, or two of the animals that have died, and we'll try our hardest to get them back information, so that they can then modify their treatment protocols and help the rest of the animals that are out there.

This is both beneficial for wildlife rehabers that have animals like in a clinical setting, but also for wildlife managers.

For example, we'll get songbirds that are sick with salmonella, and we'll turn that information back around to them quickly, so that they can get the word out.

"Hey, we're having a salmonella outbreak.

Please take all your bird feeders down, so that birds will stop dying from this."

And that will have an impact on the species, the populations.

At SCWDS we follow the one health concept, so we always look at the cases that come in not just as how important they are to that species.

Which is really important, because we also work with a lot of species that are in decline or endangered.

But how that particular disease or toxicant also impacts livestock and people.

And that's the one health concept.

And many times the impact on that animal is representative of a larger environmental impact.

So there might be some disruption to the environment that is causing that animal to get sick, or to develop an infection that normally wouldn't happen.

(bright acoustic and orchestral music) My name is Robert Mesta.

I'm a retired U.S.

Fish & Wildlife Service biologist.

After I retired, I came to Liberty Wildlife and I am now directing the Non-Eagle Feather Repository.

In U.S. history, as it relates to America's view of its wildlife.

The 1800s was a century of wildlife exploitation, particularly birds.

Fortunately, things started to turn around in the 1900s.

And we had the beginnings of like Audubon, and other conservation organizations that were alarmed at this exploitation, and the and the loss of wildlife, particularly birds.

And they started to make that known.

And as a result a series of laws protecting wildlife followed.

At the very same time, early 1900s, we formed the National Park Service, the National Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and a series of of wildlife refuges.

With a goal of preserving those public lands, and the animals that depended on them.

Unfortunately, there was an unintended consequence to the enactment of these laws, and the designation of these protected public lands.

And that is that none of these laws contain provisions that allowed Native Americans to continue to harvest wildlife for religious and ceremonial purposes.

And so they could no longer legally collect the feathers required to construct their religious and ceremonial regalia.

In 2010, Liberty Wildlife entered into an agreement with the U.S.

Fish & Wildlife Service to establish the Non-eagle Feather Repository.

We are permitted to accept, hold, and distribute feathers to Native Americans, belonging to a federally recognized tribe for religious and ceremonial purposes.

Native Americans have always maintained a very special relationship with the animals in their natural world, particularly birds, and particularly their feathers.

It was this relationship that formed their manner of worship, ceremony, dance, and song.

So Liberty Wildlife has two sources of feathers donated to it.

First of all, we have our own in-house source of feathers, birds that are molted from our permanent collection, birds that come in and don't make it, of course were utilized them.

But the majority of our feathers, we get from permitted institutions throughout the United States.

We get them from zoos, museums, veterinarians, other rehabbers, wildlife sanctuaries, just a real diverse source of feathers.

And most of the donations that the repository receives are frozen carcasses.

And so we'll get a shipment in, and we'll lay it out, and we'll grade it.

If those carcasses are really nice shape we just wrap them up and we put them in a freezer and they'll go out as froze specimens.

Sometimes some of those carcasses aren't in that good as shape, and so we'll look at them, and see if we part them out, and salvage a tail, or a set of wings, or talons.

And so we'll actually part those, and and those parts actually go into, we have some large drying boxes and we dry them out.

And after they're dried out, we freeze them for 24 hours, and make sure we get all the bugs.

And then they actually go into our inventory.

You know, we actually work pretty closely with our applicants.

We encourage them to contact us before they place an order.

And that way we can get an idea of what they need, and what we have that might satisfy their particular needs.

We receive two types of order requests, one that are ceremonial specific, and ones that are not.

The ones that are not, are easier to fill.

They just need feathers.

The species is not of importance.

Those we can work with them and get feathers out.

We turn them around the same week that we get them.

The tough ones are the ones that are ceremonial specific.

And those are the ones that are a big challenge, but we work very, very hard at filling those too.

Those could take a little longer.

So the bottom line is that feathers are both sacred, and revered.

Feathers are the most iconic symbol in Native American culture.

(easy going synthesizer and piano music) Here at The Wildlife Center of Virginia it's not enough for us to simply treat the problems of our individual patients.

We want to identify and understand not only why the animal is injured, but whether that threat is affecting all wildlife.

By doing so, we learn and can teach how we can all do a better job.

Learning from our patients, sharing what we learn, working together and collaborating that's the way to make a difference.

And there are things that you can do at home.

If you find a sick, injured, or even dead wild animal, especially, if the cause of injury or death is not obvious, take good notes.

Report everything you see to the proper authorities, or to the wildlife rehabilitation center.

Wild animals can't speak for themselves, and they don't have owners, so your observations could be critical.

Now, it's also important that you understand the wildlife laws in your state or community, including those prohibiting the possession of most wild animals, living or dead, as well as their feathers and body parts.

If you find a dead raptor, for example, such as a hawk or an owl, why not contact a local wildlife rehabilitation center to see if they can convey that body to someone connected with scientific study.

Or somebody making cultural or religious use of such animals and their body parts.

And finally understand that, unfortunately, death is a very real part of wildlife rehabilitation.

And although it's sad when these animals are not able to survive and return to the wild, we can take comfort in the fact that they still contribute to conservation.

And through their sacrifice, we understand more about how to help those that survive.

The conservation of wildlife is the celebration of life on Earth.

Funding for Untamed is made possible by.

(birds chirping) (water gurgling) (birds chirping) (bright, uplifting synthesizer music) (bright piano music)