Growing up in the Hill Country, I lived along wild animals of all sorts. In Boerne, deer are as common to see in suburban lawns as squirrels are in DFW. With so many animals living in such close contact with people, there is a huge demand for wildlife rescue. Luckily, in the heart of the Hill Country is Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation, Inc. This rescue organization has rehabilitated over 175000 animals since their founding in 1977, and currently rehabilitate about 5000-7000 animals per year. In this interview, I speak with David Vassi, an employee at Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation, Inc. Before you listen to the interview, however, David requested that I share with you this video of one of their most recent fawn releases.
What is the history behind the Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation center in Boerne?
“It was founded in 1977, by a woman named Lynn Cuny. She worked out of her house. The first animal she rescued was a bobcat, and over time she became the neighborhood animal lady. Eventually she moved into a larger place.
Now we have about 250 acres in the Hill Country, north of San Antonio, and we have a lot of animals that are here for rehabilitation, in other words, they’re injured or they’re babies who are brought in by people who found them or were brought in by a cat or a dog. We also have a lot of permanent residents, animals who were someone’s pet, such as a pet monkey, a pet tortoise, animals that all of the sudden they couldn’t keep anymore. We have monkeys that have come from medical research, private zoos, roadside attractions, many who were confiscated by the authorities. I don’t know how many animals we have here now, we have hundreds of them. We have about 150 baby possums. another 150 squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, and maybe 100 more baby birds. This is baby season right now.”
What are some of the biggest challenges with Wildlife Rehabilitation?
“Well, many of the animals who here are babies. A lot of babies have special requirements. Tube fed, they can’t really eat on their own. Baby possums for instance attach themselves to a nipple inside the mouths of their mothers, and they don’t have developed mouth parts to eat any other way. Baby rabbits are very difficult to feed, they have to be tube fed when they are very young.
The people we have here are trained and experienced to be able to do that. We have a nutrition center, that we get food in donated from grocery stores, Walmart donates a lot of food to us. When it comes in, we have apprentices who take that food, separate it, cut it up into portions, and that’s a full time job.
We have monkeys outdoors and they are fed twice a day — bananas, corn, all the stuff that they like to eat. We have carnivores that we feed anything from mice that we have to buy for the purposes of feeding animals. Sometimes we will bring in roadkill, like a deer, that the game warden will bring to us. Sometimes we will get a cow or a horse that has to be put down, and we’ll feed that. We have mountain lions, African lions, wolves, bobcats, foxes, all of these animals require meat, so that is how we feed them. I guess that is the biggest challenge, having the right kind of stuff.
Many animals come in that are injured, hit by cars, they’ll have different conditions — skin conditions, eye infections, diarrhea. Different species have different things that they require. Its the whole picture, you know? No one thing, its everything here.”
How do you fund the facility?
“Totally 100% funded by donations. We don’t get any governement sponsorship, corporate sponsorship at all. We have a lot of loyal support from donations. We had a fundraiser a few weeks ago where we auctioned off material things that are donated, such as golf clubs, a massage, plane tickets, and we auction those off.
People come by and bring animals to us. We have a facility in San Antionio and that facility is just a small intake house and people bring animals to them. Every time they do, most of them will donate. It may only be $10 or $5, but it adds up. We are 100% funded by private donations. We get lots of donations from loyal members, and also just passers-by. People who come by, drop off an animal, and make a donation.
We participated in Earth Day last Saturday. There was a function at one of the parks, so we set up a booth and a table. There were other people there having to do with Earth Day. Everybody that came by our booth got literature and a sample of wildflower seeds and a lot of them gave donations right there.
Its an ongoing, never-ending process. We are a nationally known shelter. We have donors, members in all parts of the country. We have people from New York, Colorado, everywhere.”
If you would like to find out more about Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation, Inc or make a donation to their cause, please visit their website.
Impacting Wildlife 