Rehabilitation as a conservation tool: a case studyusing the common wombat

Abstract

Wildlife rehabilitation seeks to return healthy animals back to their natural habitat with good survival prospects,and hence contribute to the persistence of their populations. However, the effectiveness of rehabilitation remains largelyundocumented, and its utility as a conservation tool is unclear. In this paper, we document the rehabilitation successof a large, herbivorous marsupial, the common wombat (Vombatus ursinus), and use the findings as a case study toevaluate the contribution that rehabilitation can make to wildlife conservation. Using a database of 54 orphaned wombatsmonitored for up to eight years, we found that 81.5% of young survived to release and, of those, 77.3% were alivein the wild by the end of the study. Survival during rehabilitation was greater for larger, older animals, but influencedalso by problems during care, reaction to human contact following weaning and, in particular, the responses ofindividuals to treatment. No factors associated with rescue condition, rehabilitation or release affected survival of animalsonce returned to the wild, suggesting that wombats were not disadvantaged by their progression through rehabilitation.We provide brief recommendations to improve rehabilitation success for wombats. We conclude that rehabilitation isan under-recognized but potentially valuable conservation tool, and suggest that it is timely to consider its contributionto wildlife management more generally.

The effectiveness of rehabilitation post catastrophic environmental events as a conservation strategy for marine turtles

“…Numerous authors have found that releases are more likely to be successful when food is plentiful and any environmental stressors are reduced (Fajardo et al, 2000;Mullineaux, 2014;Tribe et al, 2005).As in the case reported by (Saran et al, 2011) Queensland marine turtle rehabilitation is driven by individuals or volunteer organizations. The success of such rehabilitation process is not fully understood.…”

“…The success of such rehabilitation process is not fully understood. The determination of whether rehabilitation has been successful or not should not be determined based on individual treatment but in combination with the individuals long term survival (Saran et al, 2011) There is nothing known about the capacity of released animals to start breeding again and contribute to population maintenance after rehabilitation (Baker et al, 2015;Cardona et al, 2012;Karesh, 1995;Mestre et al, 2014). Tomás et al(2001) found during their study that the full recovery and survivorship of loggerhead turtles after release from fishing hook interactions was possible if only for a short time.…”

“…Rehabilitation is one of the most wildly used but poorly documented practices in wildlife conservation (Saran et al, 2011). In Australia, rehabilitation does not have standardised There is a lack of published information, particularly peer-review literature which relates to veterinary care and the treatment of wildlife (Mullineaux, 2014).…”

“…In most cases the primary objective of wildlife rehabilitation is the welfare of individual animals (Baker et al, 2015;Moore et al, 2007;Saran et al, 2011), although sometimes the message is different in that rehabilitation is having a population conservation focus. Part of the rehabilitation process value to research if appropriate post-mortem investigations are carried out.…”

“…Some regard the only role of veterinarians as ending suffering through euthanasia (Loftin, 1985;Mullineaux, 2014) , while others promote the benefit of treatment and rehabilitation (Kirkwood, 2003;Mullineaux, 2014). The treatment of sick and injured wildlife creates a "feel good factor" for those involved (Cooper and Cooper, 2006;Kirkwood, 2003;Saran et al, 2011;Sikarskie, 1992) as well as providing educational benefit (Wobeser, 2007). Dubois (2003) found that the improvement of public awareness and education was found to be a close second priority to the provision of individual care, by people involved with rehabilitation.…”