Natural Resources
By John Jankowski
·Dec 13, 2023
As a long-time friend and advocate of/for animals, I can’t help but be confused by how when a caring person assumes responsibility for an injured or orphaned “wild” animal, the wild side of that creature somehow magically disappears; and what should be something of the public’s interest — conservation, protection of species, etc. — instead becomes that individual’s own absurd self-imposed or self-inflicted notion of “doing the right thing.”
In other words, HIS problem.
Far too often, the public and even conservation officers themselves are at a loss as to what to do with or where to bring these animals. Horribly, the alternatives then become either so-called “euthanasia” or “letting nature take its course” — with the irony of the latter being that it was our alteration of “nature’s course” that probably brought the animal to the circumstances that she finds herself in to begin with!
One way to ameliorate this would be for the IDNR to provide funding to perhaps one certified and qualified veterinary clinic per county, tasked with the care for either injured or orphaned wild animals. Of course, doing so would probably entail that the agency refrain from viewing and treating living beings as little more than “natural resources” — i.e., like coal.
Wildlife Conservation
Euthanasia
Wildlife Rehabilitation
Loving Animals
