As many Island Free Press readers know, I volunteer — along with many other folks — at Hatteras Island’s community radio station, Radio Hatteras, which you can find at 99.9 and 101.5 FM on your radio dial if you are on the island or via live streaming at www.radiohatteras.org if you are not.
My small contribution is an interview show with the island’s newsmakers and other interesting folks. It’s called “To the Point,” and it’s broadcast at 5 p.m. on Sundays. Lou Browning volunteers as the sound engineer for the show — making sure it that all the sound levels are just right.
Recently, though, Lou and I sat down together at the table in the Radio Hatteras studio, so I could interview him about his other job — wildlife rehabilitator, sort of the island’s “wildlife whisperer.”
Interestingly, that’s also a volunteer job, though it takes a lot more of his time than his work at the radio station.
Lou is the founder of Hatteras Island Wildlife Rehabilitation in Frisco, a nonprofit, all-volunteer organization dedicated to the treatment and care of the island’s ill and injured wildlife. Its goal is to restore animals to good health, then release them back into the wild.
First, we talked about how he got involved doctoring the island’s wildlife. Then we moved onto how he chooses which animals he helps — or knows which ones can be helped — and eventually we got to a more general conversation about when humans ought to intervene with wild animals.
It was this last part that I found the most interesting, and it’s what I want to share with readers today.
But, first, a little background on Lou.
He says he’s always had a “connection” with animals and became involved in wildlife rehabilitation about 15 years ago. To become a licensed rehabilitator, he had to serve an apprenticeship, build a facility, and meet many other requirements
His first patients were small mammals and reptiles, but, because of where we live, most of Lou’s patients were birds. He wasn’t licensed to work with birds and so he had to transport them to Edenton, a trip of several hours each way.
When he got tired of driving, he got his license to rehab birds, which now make up many of his patients. His special interests include raptors, reptiles, and amphibians. He has constructed nine flight cages on his property and can accommodate birds as big as eagles.
His patient load varies, he says. He can go for weeks without a patient and then get 10 in one day. But, he gets lots of calls — 20 to 40 a day from folks who have come across an injured animal or have questions about wildlife. His calls come not just from Hatteras Island but from as far north as Duck and Corolla.
How he views his work, he says, has “changed over time.”
“You go into it with the attitude that you are going to save every one that you can,” he says. ?There are cases where you are never going to save the animal, but your heart is in it, so you try.
“After a few thousand cases,” he says, “your perspective may change. Mine has…I look at it now as trying not to get in the way of Darwinism….Everything that lives is going to die at some point.
“If it’s an old animal and it’s a pretty day on the beach and they just want to sit in the dunes and go naturally, that’s what we should do.”
Another thing Lou takes into consideration is what he can realistically do to help the animal that needs medical care. If a bird is ill, chances are good, he says, that he won’t know what’s wrong with it, and he has to be careful not to misdiagnose it and release it back into the population with a disease that could spread to other animals.
If an animal is injured and he can’t fix it, he will euthanize it. Then he has the cases in which the animals just need a little rest and supportive care before they can be released.
“The ones I feel strongly about intervening with,” he says “are the ones that are injured by human or interactions with humans.”
On the day we talked, his current patients included a great horned owl that went through the front grill of a vehicle and a black rat snake that was chewed up by outdoor cats — “playfully, I guess, but I think cats should remain indoors.”
Lou says that at first, he wasn’t sure the owl would make it through the night. The animal had injuries that included a collapsed eye socket and shattered wing bones. With surgery — yes, Lou can operate on birds — the bird did well and is now flying. He has a problem with a talon, but Lou is hopeful that he will be released back into the wild.
The snake was improving, but not out of the woods yet, Lou said.
You can hear more about Lou’s work in my interview with him — there’s a link to the audio at the end of this blog. You can also read more on his Facebook Page and his website, which he says is a work in progress.
In the interview, our conversation turned to when we humans need to call Lou.
Those of us who live on Hatteras and Ocracoke and who love to visit here are fortunate to be able to see a variety of wildlife — sometimes really up close and personal. The islands are on the Atlantic Flyway, which brings a huge number of different birds species to our shores each season of the year during their migrations.
When should we get involved with an animal and when should we not?
Lou says you should call him or notify the National Park Service when we see birds that are tangled or wrapped up in fishing line or nets or balloon strings or have broken or dangling wings.
However, he says that just because a bird is sitting on the beach doesn’t mean it needs help. For instance, he gets many calls about loons that are sitting on the ocean or soundside beach and not moving around.
He says that most folks don’t understand that loons are built for swimming and flying and can’t really walk around. They will sometimes haul themselves out of the water just to rest and don’t need any help — except sometimes to be moved to a quieter place if they are attracting a lot of attention.
On the other hand, he said, gannets — birds that are around the islands in the winter — won’t sit on the beach unless they are in trouble. “The only time, they go to the beach is to nest,” he said, “and they don’t do that here.”
Seals on the beach are another common sight in the winter, and people may assume they need help because they may be scratched up and bloodied, but that is, Lou says, from the “rough and tumble” life they live. Most seals, he says, are on the beach to rest and should not be approached because they may look cute but can become aggressive and can carry diseases.
Also, in the winter, you may come across a sea turtle on a soundside beach or floating in the water. It may appear dead, but might just be “cold stunned” and can be saved. A group of concerned islanders managed to rescue about 2,000 cold-stunned sea turtles last winter.
Many of us humans also like to feed the wildlife — and it’s really tempting. We see youngsters feeding the seagulls from the beach, decks of cottages, and the ferry all summer long. And then we see fishermen feeding the pelicans, usually in the spring and fall, when the birds love to beg at popular fishing spots like Cape Point.
“I was a kid too,” says Lou, but he adds that feeding wild animals “is a bad idea across the board.”
The only exception, he thinks, is feeding song birds from bird feeders, which he says is generally accepted because the birds have lost so much habitat.
Feeding the shorebirds — like the seagulls and pelicans — is a really bad idea. It’s bad for their health, he says.
“Also,” Lou notes “wildlife needs to have a fear of humans for their own safety.”
And it’s not just birds. Folks love to feed the cute raccoons, but Lou says that many of these animals that we see hit by cars on the highway are going from neighborhood to neighborhood raiding food bowls that people put out for their cats. For this reason, Dare County’s new feral cat ordinance limits the amount of time that caretakers can leave food out for the cats.
Visitors in rental cottages will also feed the cats or the raccoons or both, but the next renters may not be so keen on the idea, causing a problem for the animals and the property management companies.
Feeding animals also modifies the natural population. If food is scarce, wild animals are less likely to reproduce. On the other hand, if food is abundant, animals will have larger families — just increasing the problem.
For all of these reasons, Lou says, rehabilitators are prohibited from releasing food-habituated animals back into the wild.
His message to all of us is that we should enjoy the islands’ wildlife and respect it — at a distance.
And there is one more thing humans need to know. Lou’s work with wildlife is his passion, but it’s not a paying job. He depends on donations to keep his rehab clinic operating. And by donating, we can all help.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
If you come across an animal you think needs help, you can call Lou Browning at 252-475-4217.
You can find out more about his work, including photos and video, on his Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/Hatteras-Island-Wildlife-Rehabilitation-316636688958/?fref=ts
You can also donate to Hatteras Island Wildlife Rehabilitation from a button on the Facebook Page.
Click here to listen to an audio of the “To the Point” interview with Lou Browning.
And click here to read a story about Lou’s work that was published in The Island Free Press in 2009.
