Wildlife treated by the Uhlers and their staff number from 1,000 to 1,100 patients each year. While the Pocono Center boasts an 85 percent release rate - returning their charges back into the wild - some of their specimens become permanent rehab center residents due to severe and chronic injuries or human imprinting which make it impossible for them to re-adapt or survive in the wild.
These are animals that the Uhlers recruit for educational purposes, providing seminars and demonstrations for schools and other interested organizations. Many of these are birds of prey, quite a few of them injured by encounters with motor vehicles.
The Uhlers already have their hands full with many demands on their time. Kathy, 49, teaches high school Ecology and Bioethics and Eric, 61, teaches Law Enforcement at Monroe Career and Technical Institute. Licensed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Pennsylvania Game Commission, the Pocono Wildlife Rehabilitation Center is one of about 40 licensed rehabbers in the state. The Uhlers' operation stretches from Susquehanna County on the New York border south to the Lehigh Valley, aregion where there is no shortage of injured, abandoned, or orphaned wildlife to keep them busy. But for Kathy Uhler, who started her rehabbing career back in 1980, rescuing and treating these animals is clearly a labor of love.
The Uhlers, whose fondness for the animals they care for is reflected in the gentle way they handle them, conducted a program at a recent meeting of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers. Here they shared the hard luck stories of some of their permanent residents.
These included a pair of screech owls, both the red and gray phases of these tiny five ounce birds, which had been injured in motor vehicle accidents where they suffered brain damage along with other injuries. According to the Uhlers, many of the screech owls that arrive at the center are young birds found in nesting cavities of trees that have been cut down.
The Uhlers also had a little saw-whet owl in tow. Tipping the scale at a whopping four ounces, this is the smallest owl in the state and the same species featured on Pennsylvania's original Wild Resource Conservation Fund license plate. This particular owl suffered from wing damage and depth perception issues which make it impossible for him to return to the wild.
Various species of owls in addition to the diminutive screech and saw-whet are permanent residents of the center. These include Benjamin, a barred owl which, due to human contact, is an imprinted bird unlikely to survive very long if released. Barred owls are the ones whose haunting call "who-cooks-for-you" is a familiar touchstone for turkey hunters across the state.
These owls generally weigh around two pounds. Our largest owl, however, is the great horned owl. Representing her species for the Uhlers is Maximus the Great, a female who hit the side of a vehicle and broke her wing.
"The vet fixed it," reports Kathy, "but there's still damage."
Female great horned owls, with an average weight of 61 ounces, are larger than their male counterparts, and with broad wingspans up to 60 inches in length, these guys can resemble a sofa soaring through the treetops. Great horned owls, incidentally, can live for up to 30 years in captivity.
The Uhlers also showed off an imprinted young
barn owl named Bo. Barn owls like Bo have smaller eyes than great horned owls. Both hunt at night, but barn owls live in more open areas and have ears that are offset giving them what the Uhlers call "three dimensional hearing" which helps make them more deadly hunters.
Hawks are also prominent among the center's feathered menagerie. The smallest of these is a male American kestrel, a tiny bird of prey once called a sparrow hawk.
"This little kestrel was an imprinted bird that fell out of the nest and was raised by well meaning passersby," explains Kathy. "Unfortunately, a poor diet resulted in metabolic bone disease from lack of calcium so he can't sustain flight."
Equally familiar to Chester County residents is the red-tailed hawk. The Uhlers have one of these as well, a big male named Napoleon who hit a car and was blinded in his right eye. Normally these hawks, hunting from soaring heights, have vision that is eight or nine times sharper than human sight in terms of clarity - sharp enough to pick out a mouse in a meadow from hundreds of feet away.
The largest bird the program featured was a young turkey vulture making his public debut. Months earlier, when just a chick, the bird had been dragged into a house by a cat
"He came to the center as a white ball of fluff," notes Kathy. "Now at just six months old, he's totally black." Vultures have a nasty habit of regurgitating, so as Eric walked the room with the big bird perched on his arm providing photo-ops, the writers in attendance had to be prepared to dodge projectile vomit.
"Vultures," Kathy points out, "unlike other birds, actually have a sense of smell."
One of the most handsome birds featured in the program was a peregrine falcon, originally bred for airport bird mitigation (chasing geese and other nuisance birds from runways). The Uhlers, for a cool $1,300, purchased this particular bird from a breeder to add to their collection. But they don't keep these majestic birds cooped up in cages all day. The center provides large flight pens for the hawks and owls where can they all get a chance to spread their wings without confinement.
While birds of prey make up the bulk of the center's educational programs, most of the wildlife rescued and treated each year are small mammals ranging from baby rabbits and skunks to squirrels, opossums, raccoons, and even foxes, bobcats and black bears. The center also treats reptiles, primarily turtles with shell issues, and, for obvious reasons, spring is always their busiest time of year.
"The center also helps keep track of wildlife health trends," notes Kathy. "For example, we've found that nine Cooper's hawks have died from seizures in the past few months. We're also tracking bats with white nose syndrome. Right now we're taking care of a red-tail hawk recovering from the West Nile virus."
Source tricountyrecord.com
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