The rescue and rehabilitation of native wildlife has been practiced extensively in Australia and around the world for many years (Hass 1998; Tribe and Brown 2000; Kelly and Sleeman 2003; Menon et al. 2005; Molony et al. 2006; Rodriguez et al. 2010; Wimberger et al. 2010).
Wildlife rehabilitation aims to assist orphaned and sick or injured free-ranging wildlife with the goal of returning them to their natural habitat, in a fit and healthy state to reproduce and perform all natural functions and behaviours (Cooper and Cooper 2006; Thompson 2011; Martens and Cuomo 2013).
A wide range of people and organisations, including members of the public, wildlife carers, veterinarians, government wildlife agencies, municipal councils, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) and universities, are involved in the practice.Wildlife rescue and rehabilitation probably represents the most intimate, intensive and expensive interaction that people can have with wildlife. Although good intentions motivate those involved, the practice has also become the focus of controversy and debate. Lunney et al. (2004) state that wildlife rescue and rehabilitation allows local communities to become involved in wildlife conservation and management and increases public awareness of local environmental issues. However, it also involves considerable human intervention in the lives of wild animals, raising emotional, political, ethical, health, welfare and ecological issues and its contribution to the conservation of wildlife species is debatable.
The overall effectiveness of wildlife rehabilitation remains unclear, as important aspects of the process, such as post-release morbidity, mortality, fecundity and dispersal, have not been clearly assessed or studied.
The role and extensive contributions of wildlife care groups in Australia have been reviewed and several recommendations made (Tribe and Brown 2000; Kwok et al. 2021). This chapter will examine and evaluate the role of veterinarians and wildlife care groups in wildlife rehabilitation in Australia and make recommendations regarding future policy and practice.
Recent changes and developments will be reviewed, with a focus on wildlife rehabilitation in south-east Qld for two reasons. First, it is Australia’s fastest growing and urbanising region and consequently wildlife rehabilitation is a widespread and increasing practice in this region. There are three wildlife hospitals, which combined admit over 30 000 wild animals annually (Bouchon-Small 2013). Second, there have been several reviews of wildlife rehabilitation in southeast Qld over the past 6 yr, providing an accurate baseline assessment of the practice, the most recent being Taylor- Brown et al. (2019).In this chapter, we use a variation of the definition of ‘rescue, rehabilitation and release’ of wildlife used by Begg and Brown (1998) and Tribe and Brown (2000): ‘Taking wild animals that are injured, diseased or orphaned, and with veterinary support, provide humane care until they can be released to habitat from which they came, or are euthanased.' This definition is underpinned by two main goals: to ensure that the welfare of individual animals is paramount at all stages and intervention does not perpetuate suffering and to ensure that when released no harm is done to free-ranging conspecifics, sympatric species and ecosystems.
1.