an antibiotic. After a week of recupera- 

 tion, the turtle is taken to Oregon Inlet. 

 Tagged and released near a shallow area 

 thick with seaweed and crustaceans, the 

 turtle is on its own. 



"Sometimes I wonder about calling 

 it rehabilitation," says Frank Hudgins, 

 the aquarium's curator of husbandry. 

 "When you really look at it, rehabilita- 

 tion may require months." 



But the aquarium can hold only 

 three animals in its three-tank impound- 

 ment, which was built with state and 

 federal grant money. And when there's 

 a harbor seal or sandbar shark waiting in 

 the wings, some patients must be 

 discharged early. 



Statewide, marine mammals in 

 distress are assisted by the Marine 

 Mammal Stranding Network, a mostly 

 volunteer team of veterinarians, 

 biologists and other specialists dedicated 

 to assisting these protected animals. The 

 state and federal governments provide 

 some money to administer first aid. 

 Unfortunately, much of the team's work 

 consists of necropsies or examinations 

 to determine why a dead animal washed 

 ashore. Some die of disease or old age. 

 But many bear the scars of human 

 interference — gunshot wounds, plastic 

 entanglement and strangulation, and gill 

 net lacerations, to name a few. 



The remainder of the network's job 

 involves stabilizing injured animals and 

 transporting them to a qualified facility. 

 Easter Seal, a harbor seal that washed 

 up on Long Beach in the spring of 1993, 

 was stabilized by staff at the N.C. 

 Aquarium at Ft. Fisher and two 

 Southport rehabilitators. It was then 

 transported to the veterinary school at 

 N.C. State University. Wounded by a 

 gunshot, the seal had several other 

 problems, including severe kidney 

 disease and cataracts. It died under 

 anesthesia during eye surgery. 



Happy endings are the exception 

 rather than the rule. But good will 

 compels people to keep trying. 



"There's a very close correlation 

 between coastal development and 

 rehabilitation," says Cely, adding that 

 interest in rehabilitation has surged in 

 the past five to seven years. "We've 



started seeing more wildlife hit by cars, 

 flying into windows and power lines, 

 trees chopped down." 



Subsequently, people are waking to 

 the wild web of nature. 



"People are becoming more 

 concerned about wildlife," says 

 Stephanie Goetzinger, who founded 

 OWLS. "Instead of chopping down a 

 tree with a nest of woodpeckers in it, 

 some people are saying, 'Well, how long 

 will it take them to grow up? Maybe 

 we'll wait and take it down.'" 



Beyond nurturing a wounded or 

 orphaned animal, rehabilitators foster 

 public awareness. Their greatest value, 

 says Cely, is educational. As they 

 struggle to repair the havoc wreaked on 

 nature by humans, rehabilitators hold up 

 our folly to public scrutiny. 



Many rehabilitators keep a few 

 unreleasable animals to encourage 

 appreciation for wild species. OWLS 

 offers programs on marine entanglement 

 and puppet shows for young children. 



Also, the experience gained by 

 rehabilitators can broaden the scope of 

 knowledge about the care of protected 

 species. 



"Most of the species that come 

 through the program are common — 



squirrels or blue jays," says Cely. "But 

 some of the groups do hawks and owls. 

 That gives them experience to handle 

 endangered species that come through 

 like peregrine falcons and eagles." 



When a severe storm hit the South 

 Carolina coast in spring of 1993, a dozen 

 bald eagle chicks were blown out of their 

 nests, says Cely. A raptor center in 

 Charleston was instrumental in rearing 

 and releasing the national treasures. 



But Cely is wary of the criticisms 

 that rehabilitators don't appreciably help 

 wildlife populations as a whole. He is 

 also sensitive to complaints that wildlife 

 biologists are apathetic to the plight of 

 individual animals. 



"Just about all rehabilitators are 

 volunteers. They do it because they want 

 to and put an awful lot of time in it. We 

 think it's a humane service, and these 

 people are certainly very dedicated," he 

 says. "But without a similar effort to 

 protect habitat, it's not going to do any 

 good. A rehabilitated red-tailed hawk 

 needs a minimum of 200 or 300 acres of 

 habitat to survive. If we don't focus our 

 energies on that kind of protection, 

 rehabilitation is just going to be a 

 symptom of a greater problem." 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 1 7 



