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Trends in wildlife rehabilitation rescues and animal fate across a six-year period in New South Wales, Australia

Globally, millions of animals are rescued and rehabilitated by wildlife carers each year. Information gathered in this process is useful for uncovering threats to native wildlife, particularly those from anthropogenic causes. However, few studies using rehabilitation data include a diverse range of...

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Autores principales: Kwok, Alan B. C., Haering, Ron, Travers, Samantha K., Stathis, Peter
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8432793/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34506558
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257209
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author Kwok, Alan B. C.
Haering, Ron
Travers, Samantha K.
Stathis, Peter
author_facet Kwok, Alan B. C.
Haering, Ron
Travers, Samantha K.
Stathis, Peter
author_sort Kwok, Alan B. C.
collection PubMed
description Globally, millions of animals are rescued and rehabilitated by wildlife carers each year. Information gathered in this process is useful for uncovering threats to native wildlife, particularly those from anthropogenic causes. However, few studies using rehabilitation data include a diverse range of fauna, cover large geographical areas, and consider long-term trends. Furthermore, few studies have statistically modelled causes of why animals come into care, and what are their chances of survival. This study draws on 469,553 rescues reported over six years by wildlife rehabilitators for 688 species of bird, reptile, and mammal from New South Wales, Australia. For birds and mammals, ‘abandoned/orphaned’ and ‘collisions with vehicles’ were the dominant causes for rescue, however for reptiles this was ‘unsuitable environment’. Overall rescue numbers were lowest in winter, and highest in spring, with six-times more ‘abandoned/orphaned’ individuals in spring than winter. Of the 364,461 rescues for which the fate of an animal was known, 92% fell within two categories: ‘dead’, ‘died or euthanased’ (54.8% of rescues with known fate) and animals that recovered and were subsequently released (37.1% of rescues with known fate). Modelling of the fate of animals indicated that the likelihood of animal survival (i.e. chance of: being released, left and observed, or permanent care), was related to the cause for rescue. In general, causes for rescue involving physical trauma (collisions, attacks, etc.) had a much lower likelihood of animals surviving than other causes such as ‘unsuitable environment’, ‘abandoned/orphaned’, and this also showed some dependence upon whether the animal was a bird, reptile, or mammal. This suggests rehabilitation efforts could be focused on particular threats or taxa to maximise success, depending on the desired outcomes. The results illustrate the sheer volume of work undertaken by rehabilitation volunteers and professionals toward both animal welfare and to the improvement of wildlife rehabilitation in the future.
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spelling pubmed-84327932021-09-11 Trends in wildlife rehabilitation rescues and animal fate across a six-year period in New South Wales, Australia Kwok, Alan B. C. Haering, Ron Travers, Samantha K. Stathis, Peter PLoS One Research Article Globally, millions of animals are rescued and rehabilitated by wildlife carers each year. Information gathered in this process is useful for uncovering threats to native wildlife, particularly those from anthropogenic causes. However, few studies using rehabilitation data include a diverse range of fauna, cover large geographical areas, and consider long-term trends. Furthermore, few studies have statistically modelled causes of why animals come into care, and what are their chances of survival. This study draws on 469,553 rescues reported over six years by wildlife rehabilitators for 688 species of bird, reptile, and mammal from New South Wales, Australia. For birds and mammals, ‘abandoned/orphaned’ and ‘collisions with vehicles’ were the dominant causes for rescue, however for reptiles this was ‘unsuitable environment’. Overall rescue numbers were lowest in winter, and highest in spring, with six-times more ‘abandoned/orphaned’ individuals in spring than winter. Of the 364,461 rescues for which the fate of an animal was known, 92% fell within two categories: ‘dead’, ‘died or euthanased’ (54.8% of rescues with known fate) and animals that recovered and were subsequently released (37.1% of rescues with known fate). Modelling of the fate of animals indicated that the likelihood of animal survival (i.e. chance of: being released, left and observed, or permanent care), was related to the cause for rescue. In general, causes for rescue involving physical trauma (collisions, attacks, etc.) had a much lower likelihood of animals surviving than other causes such as ‘unsuitable environment’, ‘abandoned/orphaned’, and this also showed some dependence upon whether the animal was a bird, reptile, or mammal. This suggests rehabilitation efforts could be focused on particular threats or taxa to maximise success, depending on the desired outcomes. The results illustrate the sheer volume of work undertaken by rehabilitation volunteers and professionals toward both animal welfare and to the improvement of wildlife rehabilitation in the future. Public Library of Science 2021-09-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8432793/ /pubmed/34506558 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257209 Text en © 2021 Kwok et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Kwok, Alan B. C.
Haering, Ron
Travers, Samantha K.
Stathis, Peter
Trends in wildlife rehabilitation rescues and animal fate across a six-year period in New South Wales, Australia
title Trends in wildlife rehabilitation rescues and animal fate across a six-year period in New South Wales, Australia
title_full Trends in wildlife rehabilitation rescues and animal fate across a six-year period in New South Wales, Australia
title_fullStr Trends in wildlife rehabilitation rescues and animal fate across a six-year period in New South Wales, Australia
title_full_unstemmed Trends in wildlife rehabilitation rescues and animal fate across a six-year period in New South Wales, Australia
title_short Trends in wildlife rehabilitation rescues and animal fate across a six-year period in New South Wales, Australia
title_sort trends in wildlife rehabilitation rescues and animal fate across a six-year period in new south wales, australia
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8432793/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34506558
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257209
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