Not for the faint of heart

Rescue is not for the faint of heart. I think a lot of people wander into rescuing by just rescuing one animal.  And perhaps they do it really well. Or perhaps they do it dismally.  When it's just one animal nobody ever really knows what you did.

But try to become somebody who is rescuing or attempting to rescue many animals. Try to be somebody who is spreading the word to the community about your efforts so that more animals might be helped.

Imagine just as you're finally reaching out to the world that you're helping animals, somebody claims you're doing the opposite.  Perhaps they claim you're abusing the animals.  Perhaps they claim that you are ignorant and don't know what you're doing, or they say you have no idea how to run a rescue.

I personally briefly attempted to be in the position helping very young newborn horses by providing a place for them to be delivered as an alternative to their wholesale slaughter.

I spent more than two years of my life trying to make the right connections and jump through all the hoops to provide a facility for these foals, even while I was already operating the most high-end, public, equestrian facility in the region.

In that entire two plus years, I was hardly able to put a dent in the effort I would have needed to make to succeed at saving these babies. And eventually, beat up, disappointed, feeling like a failure, scratching my head because if anybody could have given them a safe place to land it would have been me.. I gave up.

And anybody who knows me knows that my uttering words " I gave up," is an extreme failure for me.

But after the struggle that I had, I simply came away believing that many people involved in the rescue pipeline were more about the money and the politics than anything else.  I was prepared with everything that was needed; I was not asking for money, I was not looking for anything other than to be of service to these babies, and to protect them from an otherwise certain death.

And now, fast forward slightly more than 20 years ahead, here I am living a life very deeply enmeshed with people who spend their entire life rescuing wildlife. And I observe from the outside of it (and maybe sometimes a little on the inside), how politicized it truly is. Yet, even as much as I believe I understand about the politics of it -- which are ugly make no mistake-- interaction with it, on occasion, brings me to my knees.

The ugly, disappointing, inside truth about rescue is that a lot of it is about money and a lot of it is about politics and the two things are hand in hand. They are two ugly cousins of each other. And I think the best thing that people can do if they don't want dirt on their hands and don't want to get sucked into the meat grinder, is to simply be a "first responder" for wildlife.

They don't really seem to have that term in wildlife rescue. But they should. Because the people who just want to keep their hands clean and help wildlife... those people don't run rescues. They don't rehab for the most part (although a lot of rehabbers are first responders too, it seems).

The first responders wait at the ready and give up their free time and often their own resources to respond and show up for animals in their most distressed moments.  Those people simply stand by and wait for the emergency calls to come in.  Then, they do the thing that the homeowners and the property owners and the finders of these injured and distressed animals can't or won't do.

They swallow any hesitation or reservation or fear they might have, and they step in and collect up the animal that is in distress. Many times, the animal doesn't even survive the transport to the emergency vet. But in spite of the heartbreak that accompanies the experience of being a first responder to wildlife, a few people find it a better option to be one on one with the animals they committed to saving than to slog through the trenches of bureaucracy and petty infighting.

But even these first responders are not safe from extremists and the petty, backbiting, keyboard cowboys who feel they need to appoint themselves the authority of all authority.  And it's in those moments that I again feel the feeling of defeat that I felt so many years ago when I was trying to do something really good for a whole lot of baby horses.  Make note, I am several steps separated from my friends who are on the front lines, so I have not had many experiences of this, but it only takes one nasty run-in.

And the only good I can find in those moments when my heart is breaking for my friends having to fight these ridiculous fights is that they are stronger than I am when it comes to these moments. I don't know how they do it. I don't know how they keep putting up with these people.  But they do. They find a way to navigate real conversations with these ignorant, combatant, people who in the long run will have done nothing but wasted the time of good people who are trying to help animals.

If I tell you that these friends were already my heroes, I know you won't be surprised. Yet, when I reflect on how much additional burden that they sometimes are forced to carry because of these challenging, unhelpful, trollish people, I think to myself, "The world is lucky these people still exist. Let's not lose them."

This is a special and heartfelt thank you to Aimee, Tracy, Lynette, Leslie, Jann, Jane, and Ben, along with the many other unsung first responders for wildlife who sometimes must tread these very difficult waters.  

*** This blog post is penned only a few weeks after the tragic loss of Mikayla Raines, who was an incredible force for the protection of fur farm foxes in her rescue, SaveAFox Rescue.  Mikayla heartbreakingly succumbed to the brutality of these online "rescue trolls" and ended her own life, rather than continue to bear the pain of the constant attacks on her reputation and the good work she was, and her amazing rescue was and is still, doing.  I write this to honor all that Mikayla accomplished, as well as to recognize other rescuers around the world.