Circle P Wildlife Rescue: January 2012

Who we are... and who we aren't

Who we are:

We are John and Teresa. We live in rural Rains County, Texas. We both grew up involved in farming and ranching. We learned how to care for animals from our parents.

John's dad worked for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmates working on the grounds of the prison frequently found injured/orphaned small animals. These inmates knew who to bring the animals to: John's dad. Dad brought the animals home where John's mother and older sister bottle-fed them and nursed them back to health. When they were old enough to survive in the wild, they were released. Seems like there was always a baby ground squirrel, rabbits and other small animals living in a shoebox under the bathroom vanity.

Teresa started caring for orphaned babies on her own as a child. Growing up on a working ranch, Teresa frequently found injured and orphaned animals. Teresa raised baby Cottontail Rabbits on a regular basis - something few people are able do successfully.

When we first got married, we rescued and/or rehabilitated several dogs, a pigeon with one wing (result of a hawk attack) and a baby dove. We lived in town at that point and didn't really have a place to keep wild animals, but we did what we could.

In 2008 we decided, for a number of reasons to move away from the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. We found a few acres with a small house and a barn on it just outside Emory, Texas. The owner of the property was an elderly man named John Hagen.

Mr. Hagen was an amateur conservationist and had home-made bird boxes of every size all over the property. One housed a colony of bees; Some housed flying squirrels; Others had owls, ducks, Bluebirds, etc. As John showed us around, we knew we'd found home. We bought the place from John and made friends with him. John was in poor health when we met him, and within a year of our meeting him, John died. We miss John very much and hope he would be pleased with our efforts.

What we believe:

We are conservative Christians and our work with wild animals is an attempt to give our testimony and to serve and honor God.

God created the animals:

Genesis 1:25 - God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

God cares about the animals:
Luke 12:6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.

God gives each person gifts or abilities to use in His service.

1 Corinthians 12:1 Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.
1 Corinthians 12:7 - But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man
1 Corinthians12:8 - For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;
1 Corinthians 12:9 - To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;

We use our meager abilities to help these animals survive. We house, care and feed them until they are mature enough to survive on their own in the wild, and then we return them to where they are supposed to be - in the wild.

Who we aren't.
We're NOT animal rights activists. We believe these people are misguided and few of them ever lift a finger to actually help an animal. Most are quite content to make spectacles of themselves protesting outside a fried chicken restaurant or throwing red paint on people wearing fur coats. Not our cup of tea.

We're NOT against hunting or fishing. We believe hunting and fishing are very valid methods to keep animal populations within healthy boundaries, ensuring enough natural resources for all the wild animals to thrive. We support hunting as a source of healthy meat and have no qualms with hunters using wild game to feed their families.

We don't make pets of the wild animals, as much as we love them, it'd be a terrible disservice to them. They were born in the wild and that's where they're supposed to live.

Legalities: We are working to get our license from Texas Parks and Wildlife. In the meantime, we volunteer and are listed as sub-permitees of a larger wildlife rescue/rehabilitation operation in Terrell, Texas.

We are legally authorized to treat, house and transport wild animals.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

1/5/12 - New raccoon.

Thursday of last week, which would be December 29th, Teresa, Katie and I went riding our four-wheelers on our neighbor's property. Katie drove right past an adult raccoon in the middle of a pasture, in broad daylight. Katie never saw the 'coon (and for reasons I'll explain later the 'coon didn't seem to see Katie).

I pulled to a stop and watched the raccoon. Teresa joined me. We thought the 'coon must be sick to be in an open area in broad daylight. We watched and noticed that the coon didn't show any of the typical outward signs of illness - matted eyes, runny nose, aggressive behavior. The coon stood up and walked away toward a creek. We followed. The coon had a slight limp - maybe it was injured. The coon was also skinny. Teresa left to go get a cage in case we needed to intervene and some food we could leave behind for the coon to eat if we decided to leave it where it was. I watched and followed as the coon went into a creek bed. The coon eventually settled in the exposed roots of a tree. We watched and decided not to intervene. We left food and thought that was the end of the story.

Fast-forward to the evening of Wednesday January 4th. Our dogs went nuts in the backyard, barking at something on the neighbor's place. Katie went to look and discovered a raccoon ambling slowly toward our house through the neighbor's pasture. Teresa and I both agreed that it appeared to be the same raccoon we'd seen five days (same size, condition, and slow, ambling gait) earlier and nearly a mile away through the woods. As the coon got closer, she didn't seem too worried about us. We took the coon some food, which she ate. We couldn't quite put our finger on it, but something was wrong. I donned gloves and used a fishing net to capture the coon. To my surprise she didn't fight after the initial shock of being snared in a net wore off. We brought the coon to the house and examined her as best we could - we didn't want to handle her more than necessary for fear that it would stress the raccoon and also because we both really like our fingers attached to our hands. A mad raccoon can HURT you.

We determined that the raccoon was a female, she appeared to be a young adult and as we checked her over, we noticed that she didn't react to seeing us, but appeared to react to sound and smell - was she blind?

We've had the raccoon for over 24 hours now. She seems to be in decent shape but poorly nourished. We've started a five-day antibiotic cycle and are feeding her every few hours. She does appear to be at least partially blind. Young raccoons can suffer blindness as a result of a poor diet, and we think this little girl has been living off of nothing but corn from the neighbor's deer feeder - she was a hundred feet from a deer-feeder when we initially saw her. If the impaired vision is the result of poor diet, it may be reversible.

This little girl doesn't have a name yet, and I took the first photo of her today in her cage. When I took the photo, she didn't know the cage door was open. I got her to look my direction by kissing at her - she followed the sound. The flash made her eyes glow.

We don't know what to expect from here, but we will care for her and get her in good physical shape. If the blindness does reverse itself with proper nutrition, we'll release her back into the wild where she belongs. If she truly is blind and it is determined to be permanent, we won't be able to release her. At that point, she'll just become another well-cared-for member of the family.

Six baby skunks - July 2009

We learned of six baby skunks at a business in Arlington, Texas. SKUNKS! Nobody likes skunks, right? But they're part of God's creation and they were babies. Nothing deserves to starve to death and we weren't willing to sit back and let that happen. Mom was nowhere to be found, and given their proximity to a major roadway, it was pretty likely she had been hit by a car. When we initially got the call, we were told ONE baby skunk was wandering around during the daytime, begging food from employees. When we arrived and did some investigating, we discovered the skunk's den - there were SIX of them. All were hungry and dehydrated. We captured them, fed them and got them hydrated then turned them over to a skunk specialist. Although we'd both worked with animals since we were kids, these six babies made us keenly aware of two things - we needed more training and we needed to get much more deeply involved in rescue/rehab.

Three infant Eastern Grey Squrrels - Georgia, Debbie and Larry

2/12/2010 - These little bugs were abandoned by their mother after the tree that housed their nest fell in an ice storm. They are less than a week old in this photo. We gave mom every opportunity to come back, but after a few hours it was clear that she'd gone and wasn't coming back. Time was not on our side; one baby had fallen into the snow and appeared to be dead. Cold to the touch, no detectable heartbeat or respiration. I picked him up, held him in my cupped hands and blew my warm breath on him. After a minute, I was certain I felt him move. I passed him over to Teresa, so she could continue to warm him up while I got the other two from their destroyed nest. The electricity was out because of the ice storm, so we wrapped all three in a towell and sat them near the wood stove in our living room. Within minutes, all three were moving and hungry! We named them Debbie, Georgia and Larry.