Injuries to Wildlife
95% of the animals that become patients in wildlife rehabilitation centres are there because of things that people do. Animals are affected by pollution, traps, barbed wire, household pets, electrocution, cars, houses, farm equipment and a wide assortment of other man-made or man-caused factors. This page shows some of the results of what happens when wildlife encounters man's world.

A word of warning. Some people may find some of these pictures very disturbing -- and they are -- but this what happens when man encroaches in the world of nature.

Fawn attacked by a dog

Many people let their dogs and cats run free, forgetting that these animals are, indeed, predators. In North America, household cats kill 500,000 song birds every day. Cat saliva is poisonous to many birds and if the bird's skin gets punctured by a bite, the prognosis is not promising. Dogs will readily chase rabbits or small fawns causing irrepairable damage. You can not train a cat not to hunt and kill a bird -- it's part of their nature. The only way to keep your cat from killing a bird is to keep it indoors.

In Canada alone, over 50,000 tonnes of lead are left in the environment every year from fishermen losing their lead sinkers or from shotgun buckshot. Lead sinkers are now prohibited, but looking at a couple hundred years of European colonisation, there is enormous amounts of lead in the environment. These lead pellets are eaten by fish or waterfowl which are in turn eaten by larger predators -- the lead works its way through the food chain resulting in lead poisoning in many large raptors. The same result occurs with herbicides and pesticides. They slowly bioaccumulate through the food chain and many top predators end up in wildlife rehabilitation centres with poisoning. It is the bioaccumulation of pesticides such as DDT that almost wiped out such majestic birds as the Peregrine Falcon or the Bald Eagle. While the use of DDT has been banned in Canada and the USA, it is still used in some South American countries where many of these birds migrate to.

Great Horned Owl wings cooked by electrocution

Every year thousands of birds have encounters with power lines. These same power lines that bring electricity to our homes can be deadly to an owl or a hawk that may run into them. Electrocution inuries will have both an entry and exit wound from the shock. It often literally cooks and burns the very flesh off the bird. The prognosis for these birds is not good, but amazingly enough they sometimes do survive with extensive care and a great deal of time.

In addition to power lines many birds run into buildings at night, are stunned and often killed by the fall to the ground. Another killer is communication towers. Visit www.towerkill.com for more information.

Great Horned Owl after encounter with barbed wire fence

There are many other hazzards for wildlife. A bird flying high can encouter a power line, but a bird flying low can encounter a barbed wire fence. Encounters like these can cause great damage to animals that hit them.

In addition to animals hitting objects, objects such as moving cars and trucks can hit the amimal. Wildlife rehabilitation centers get dozens of "hit by car" casualties every year.

There are no easy solutions to any of these problems. However, these animals are being killed or injured due to actions (intentional or not) by people. A very dedicated group of people -- those working and volunteering in wildlife rehabilitation -- are doing their part to return the injured animals back to their home.

More on Wildlife Rehabilitation

• Introduction to Wildlife Rehabilitation
• Working in Wildlife Rehabilitation
• Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre Links
• Frequently asked questions about wildlife rehabilitation

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This page last updated July 28, 2000