Sanibel Island, Fl–It’s hard to feel sorry for rascally raccoons when they dig into your trash bins at home and fling garbage all over the street. But any injured animal –even raccoons–brought to Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW) gets equal, caring treatment.
Your sympathy swells when you view the destruction we humans have wrought upon animal habitats at CROW’s Education Center. There are photos of shells torn open by motorboats and cars. Hooks fill the bellies of pelicans, a residue of swallowing fish with hooks still embedded. CROW Clinic Director Dr. PJ Deitschel treats them all as patients. “if you’re a wild animal in need, we’re going to take care of you,” she says. The clinic combines Eastern therapies like acupuncture and herbal treatments along with Western medicines.
CROW’s patients are not on display for visitors. The Healing Winds Visitor Education Center provides hands-on interactive exhibits where guests can learn how the vets diagnose problems, choose therapies, and sometimes must choose to end the patient’s suffering. About 50% of the animals brought in to the clinic do not make it. If the vets determine that injuries are too severe to permit an animal to recover and return to the wild, it is put to sleep.
In the summer, there might be as many as 500 patients in the clinic, though 180 some were resting and recovering while I visited there. Closed cameras stream video into the education center, as turtles lie in swimming pools and birds perch on branches.
CROW was founded by Shirley Walter 41 years ago as she sought to assist animals that had been hurt on Sanibel Island. People then told her not to worry about the injured seagulls, “It’s just nature,” they told her. Instead, she gathered them up and brought them to a vet friend who helped restore the creatures.