Wildlife Watch

Some forces that contributed to the new amendment include thousands of names on petitions that were sent to the government; the growing number of dog and cat “owners” in Taiwan.  These dog and cat guardians have become sensitized to the animals, and now view them as the individuals they are; of course, the main person to thank for the law is President Tsai Ing-wen, who herself is an animal lover.

President Tsai adopted three retired guide dogs together, and promised to pass a law that would remove the restrictions that keep them from many public places.  President Tsai is hoping that as the dogs are allowed to enter properties from where they are currently banned, more people will have seeing-eye dogs, and that will also provide homes for the dogs. 

Obviously, these precious animals’ voices need to be heard.  You can help them.  See the information below this article.

The Duke Lemur Center in North Carolina welcomed, Elphaba, a baby aye-aye.

See the slender fingers of the aye-aye.

As if ceaseless environmental destruction isn’t enough to cause so much misery to wildlife, rumors and superstition seem to be putting the finishing touches on. 

Unfortunately, for humans and monkeys alike, there is a yellow fever outbreak in Brazil.  While the disease is caused by mosquitoes, howler monkeys are falsely being blamed for it.

According to http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/05/health/brazil-monkeys-yellow-fever/ Roberto Alves is manager of the Vectorially Transmitted Illnesses Technical Vigilance Unit at Brazil’s Health Ministry.  He is tracking the outbreak and said that the death of any primate requires notification to health services.  The notifications can sometimes come from environmental protection workers or from the community itself, those concerned that the monkey has passed on the virus to its members.

“Since we only discover the circumstances of death after the fact, we sometimes discover that some primates didn’t have natural deaths but violent ones,” Alves said. He added that “This information does not represent the total, but it’s a sample of what happens in some regions.”

Since yellow fever can be acquired by all primates – including the native monkeys – people automatically conclude that the virus was transmitted by the monkeys – which in turn causes their senseless slaughter.

We don’t have to look far to find false rumors that lead to the death of animals.  Just one example is that Lyme disease is caused by deer, leading to people killing deer. Here are some facts that, with your help, will spread faster than the fake news!

According to research published by the Humane Society of the US:

Killing deer can make matters worse with respect to human infection. Although adult ticks prefer a large host like deer, they will switch to alternative hosts when their preferred host species isn’t available. If deer are killed, the ticks will congregate at higher densities on any remaining deer.

Scientists warn people to be extra vigilant in areas where deer have been hunted because such areas have larger numbers of ticks “questing” for a new large host in the absence of deer—leaving people and dogs extra vulnerable. 

For more details, and to see how to protect yourself, visit: http://www.humanesociety.org

The Stick House Sanctuary

THE CIRCUITOUS RESCUE!

The Wildlife Watch Hotline is just cranking up for all of the calls about injured and orphaned wild animals that we will receive during the spring and summer.

Usually, our early spring calls come from the west and south, so not surprisingly, about mid-April, we had a call from a family in Las Cruces, NM, about a baby bird who was found on the ground in bad shape and unable to fly.   When the father and son returned home with the bird, they called Wildlife Watch.  We checked the areas around Las Cruces for a bird wildlife rehabilitator but, to our dismay, there weren’t any!  The closest wildlife rehabilitation center was in El Paso, Texas!

We then called our friend, Joe Miele, who lives in Las Cruces and asked if he knew of a rehabber there, and he confirmed that the closest one was in El Paso, TX,  about a 40-minute drive away. Joe enlisted Rebecca Stanger, his friend, and she drove the bird to The Stick House Sanctuary in El Paso, TX. 

The Sanctuary folks allowed Rebecca to take a photo of the bird and his new companion.  The bird Rebecca delivered is on the left.  You can see him snug as a bug in an adorable hat nest that a volunteer knits for the Santuary’s babies.

They identified the little bird as a mourning dove. It looks like he’ll make it!