Noha Abou‐Madi, DVM, MSc, DACZM
Associate Clinical Professor Section of Zoological Medicine
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY
USA

Matthew C. Allender, DVM, PhD
Assistant Professor, Veterinary Clinical Medicine
Director, Wildlife Epidemiology Lab
Research Affiliate, Prairie Research Institute
Department of Veterinary Clinical Medicine
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL
USA

Heather W. Barron, DVM, DABVP (Avian)
Medical & Research Director
Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW)
Sanibel, FL, USA

R. Avery Bennett, DVM, MS, DACVS
Professor of Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences
School of Veterinary Medicine
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA
USA

Linda E. Bowen
Wildlife Rehabilitator
Bats101.info
Falls Village, CT
USA

Allan Casey
WildAgain Wildlife Rehabilitation, Inc.
Evergreen, CO
USA

Edward E. Clark Jr, BA
Director/Founder
Wildlife Center of Virginia
Waynesboro, VA
USA

Leigh Ann Clayton, DVM, DABVP (Avian), DABVP (Reptilian/Amphibian)
Vice President of Animal Care and Welfare
National Aquarium
Baltimore, MD
USA

Kristen Dubé, DVM
Veterinarian
Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science
Miami, FL
USA

Rebecca S. Duerr, DVM, MPVM, PhD
Veterinarian and Research Director
International Bird Rescue
Fairfield, CA
USA

Scott Ford, DVM, DABVP (Avian)
Avian Specialty Veterinary Services
Milwaukee, WI
USA

Laurie J. Gage, DVM, Dipl ACZM
Big Cat and Marine Mammal Specialist
USDA APHIS Animal Care
Napa, CA
USA

Antonia Gardner, DVM
Medical Director
South Florida Wildlife Center (SFWC)
Fort Lauderdale, FL
USA

Michele Goodman, MHS, VMD
Director of Veterinary Services
Elmwood Park Zoo
Norristown, PA
USA

Bethany Groves, DVM
Wildlife Veterinarian
PAWS Wildlife Center
Lynnwood, WA
USA

David Sanchez‐Migallon Guzman, DVM, MS, ACZM, ECZM
Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Epidemiology
Companion Exotic Animal Medicine and Surgery Service
Department of Medicine and Epidemiology
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of California Davis
Davis, CA
USA

Michelle G. Hawkins, VMD DABVP (Avian)
Director, California Raptor Center
Professor, Companion Exotic Animal Medicine and Surgery Service
Department of Medicine and Epidemiology
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of California
Davis, CA
USA

Sonia M. Hernandez, DVM, DACZM, PhD
Professor, D.B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Study at the College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Georgia
Athens, GA
USA

John R. Huckabee, DVM
Veterinary Program Manager
PAWS Wildlife Center
Lynnwood, WA
USA

Helen Ingraham, DVM
Associate Veterinarian
Veterinary Emergency & Critical Care
Las Vegas, NV
USA

Kelli Knight, DVM, CWR
Staff Veterinarian
Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke
Roanoke, VA
USA

Jeannie Lord, PhD
Executive Director/Founder, Pine View Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center
Fredonia, WI
USA

Elizabeth A. Maxwell, DVM, MS
Surgical Oncology Fellow
Department of Small Animal Clinical Sciences
College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL
USA

Dave McRuer, MSc, DVM, DACVPM
Wildlife Health Specialist
Parks Canada Agency
Charlottetown, PEI
Canada

Erica A. Miller, DVM, CWR
Adjunct Associate Professor of Wildlife Medicine
Department of Clinic Studies
University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine
Philadelphia, PA
USA

Terry M. Norton, DVM, DACZM
Director/Veterinarian
Georgia Sea Turtle Center/Jekyll Island Authority
Jekyll Island, GA
USA

Joanne Paul‐Murphy, DVM, DACZM, DACAW
Director, The Richard M. Schubot Parrot Wellness & Welfare Program
Professor, Companion Exotic Animal Medicine and Surgery Service
Department of Medicine and Epidemiology
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of California
Davis, CA
USA

Nicole Rosenhagen, DVM
Wildlife Veterinarian
PAWS Wildlife Center
Lynwood, WA
USA

Renée Schott, DVM, CWR
Medical Director and Senior Veterinarian
Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota
Roseville, MN
USA

David Scott, DVM
Staff Veterinarian
Carolina Raptor Center
Huntersville, NC
USA

Marcy J. Souza, DVM, MPH, DABVP (Avian), DACVPM
Associate Professor
College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN
USA

Florina S. Tseng,

BS, DVM
Director, Wildlife Clinic
Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
Tufts University
North Grafton, MA
USA

Peach van Wick, MS, DVM
Research Fellow
Wildlife Center of Virginia
Waynesboro, VA
USA

Sallie C. Welte, MA, VMD
Clinic Director Emeritus
Tri‐State Bird Rescue and Research, Inc.
Newark, DE
USA; and
Adjunct Associate Professor of Wildlife Medicine
Department of Clinic Studies
University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine
Philadelphia, PA
USA

Julia K. Whittington, DVM
Clinical Professor of Zoological Medicine
Veterinary Teaching Hospital Director
College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign
Urbana, IL
USA

Michael J. Yabsley, MS, PhD, FRES
Professor‐Wildlife
D.B. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, Department of Population Health, College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Georgia
Athens, GA
USA

Michael Ziccardi, DVM, MS, PhD
Director for Oiled Wildlife Care Network
Associate Director of the Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center
School of Veterinary Medicine
University of California
Davis, CA
USA

There have always been caring and idealistic people who wanted to help wildlife. Think of tales like Aesop's story about the lion with the thorn in his paw. I wouldn't be surprised if the origins of the domestic dog might have arisen from an early hominid child “rescuing” an “orphan” wolf pup.

This book represents an amazing example of how far wildlife rehabilitation has come. It combines the expertise of some of the top wildlife rehabilitators and goes a long way toward defining the current state of the art. Although much of the focus is clinical, there are also important chapters on aspects of population health and research.

I first got involved in rehab in 1971. Back then, rehab was almost prehistoric by today's standards. There were pitifully few organized centers and even fewer resources. There were no textbooks, no journals, and no state or national organizations holding meetings. Most rehab was carried out in the homes of well‐meaning people who had little training and no veterinary support. The internet was a science fiction dream and desktop computers were not yet practical for most of us. In retrospect, it's amazing how rapidly all that changed.

It may have been the combination of several social trends in the 1960s and early 1970s that fostered the emergence of wildlife rehabilitation as an organized discipline. Rachel Carson's 1962 publication of Silent Spring heralded a new era of social and environmental concern and consciousness. The succeeding years brought fundamental changes in how people think of our relationships with nonhuman species and the natural world.

Society was in upheaval in the US and abroad. Women's liberation, the civil rights movement, and antiwar sentiment were galvanizing people into action. The first Earth Day in 1970 made popular the philosophical approach “think globally, act locally” (René Dubos). At about the same time the animal rights movement was gaining momentum.

Such energy and activism propelled passage of landmark legislation including the Animal Welfare Act (1966), Clean Air Act (1970), Clean Water Act (1972), and Endangered Species Act (1973), as well as the establishment of the USEPA (1970) and passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act (1976).

Biologists and veterinarians had been involved in wildlife disease investigation for many years. The Wildlife Disease Association was founded in 1951 but it wasn't until the 1970s that some veterinary schools in the US began to introduce wildlife medicine into their curricula. The American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians was founded in 1979.

The 1970s was also the decade that saw wildlife rehabilitation evolve and begin to develop into state and national organizations. In 1972, rehabilitators in California joined to form the Wildlife Rehabilitation Council – this became the International WRC in 1986. In the midwest and east, the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association was incorporated in 1982. And overseas the British Wildlife Rehabilitation Council was formed in 1987.

As a rehabilitator, it was encouraging to see all these advances taking place. It was especially exciting to see authors and organizations begin to publish more and more books and journals to assist rehabilitators, veterinarians, and researchers (a partial list of some early books is appended).

And that's where this book comes in. It is an encyclopedic resource that many of us will be using for years to come. In looking at the list of authors for this volume, you will see contributions from an interesting and diverse group of rehabilitators and veterinarians. Some of the vets were rehabilitators first and were drawn to veterinary medicine by their desire to do more for their wildlife patients and their passion for science. Others were environmental educators or wildlife biologists whose commitment to conservation issues introduced them to the need for wildlife care. Still others got their start in rehab through small animal medicine, zoo medicine or training in the military.

One of the lessons that most of us have learned is that academic training alone is not sufficient to make a good rehabilitator. Anyone who is serious about their wildlife interests needs to get as much hands‐on experience as they can. This can include formal coursework, internships, participating in professional meetings, and constantly picking the brains of knowledgeable, experienced rehabbers. And we've got to keep reading. The science is always advancing, so if you're still doing things the way you were 10 years ago, you're almost certainly out of date. Rehabilitators need to take advantage of a broad spectrum of literature including taxonomy and wildlife biology, zoological medicine, rehabilitation, exotic pets, and even laboratory animal medicine.

Wildlife rehabilitation is a fascinating hybrid of priorities and activities. Its origins and core values are primarily humane, with caring people rescuing animals that have no owners, providing the best possible care, and releasing these animals back to the wild. In some modest way, this helps many of us feel as though we're making up for the immense damage that our species continues to do to the natural world. One of the most important related goals of wildlife rehab is environmental education. Encouraging people to live more gently on the Earth – a topic that is the focus of many publications other than the present volume.

As the current book amply demonstrates, rehab has also grown to encompass a range of goals that focus on the health and well‐being of populations of animals and their environments. Little biomedical information has been gathered and published on many of the species that rehabilitators handle. Rehab can serve an important role in filling in these gaps. If we're speaking of toxins, emerging infectious diseases, or interactions with domestic animals, wildlife rehabilitation can be an important tool for basic research and environmental health monitoring.

One important role of wildlife rehabilitation can be to advance the development of techniques for captive management. How can we improve nutrition, reduce stress, avoid the transmission of disease, and prevent the development of antibiotic‐resistant microbes? We must continually challenge ourselves to do better and to come up with improved metrics for how we define “success” in rehabilitation.

Readers should appreciate this book as a marvelous resource that will improve the tools we have to help wildlife. But this book also serves two other important functions. It challenges us all to learn more and to do better. Where is more knowledge needed and how can our efforts contribute to further advances? And finally, I hope that this book inspires us all. It's wonderfully energizing to know that there are other people who share our love, energy and dedication to helping wildlife.

Our purpose for this book was to finally compile as much evidence‐based information possible, and to capitalize on the experience of so many who work day‐in and day‐out in the field of wildlife medicine. We also wanted to highlight the importance of the “big picture” of wildlife rehabilitation. As humankind’s unprecedented impact on our natural world continues, what we do with every single creature will matter, but in the meantime, we hope the concepts of how this work – the rehabilitation of wildlife – impacts wildlife populations will permeate these chapters.

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the authors who indulged our mission and shared their expertise.

A project of this scope cannot be completed without the support of family members, as everyone knows that most of the work associated with producing a textbook is squeezed in “here or there.” My husband, Michael Yabsley, deserves a lot of thanks, not only because he spent endless days with the other editors and me editing and organizing, but he also held the fort as I disappeared for days to meet with the rest of the group. This project, from conception to reality, went on longer than we expected, in no small part because of the birth of no fewer than four children among us, job changes, promotions, and generally busy lives! I was merely a facilitator, and the other editors (Barron, Yabsley, Miller, and Aguilar) deserve praise for their persistence in aiming for excellence.

The real thanks should go to the thousands of individuals who dedicate their lives to the care of wildlife every day. Most of those people are underpaid and undervalued but are fueled by their passion to help in some way, however small. We hope this book helps them to help wildlife!

Roberto Aguilar is grateful for the time and materials shared by the Tucson Wildlife Center. Their input and generosity were invaluable.

Erica Miller is grateful for parents who nurtured interest in a “nontraditional career,” and a wonderfully patient husband who tolerates this continued pursuit. She is also grateful for the many wildlife rehabilitators and wild animals from whom she has learned, and continues to learn every day.

Heather Barron is grateful to the dedicated staff, volunteers, veterinary interns, and students at CROW who care so deeply about the health and welfare of wildlife and who make every day an adventure. She also gives special thanks to her family for their support during the creation of this magnum opus.

Finally, we thank those who contributed technical assistance: Henry C. Adams created the cover art and R. Ethan Cooper assisted with formatting.