Who are we?
What do we do?
How can you help?

Wildlife Images is a private non-profit corporation established in 1981. We provide care and treatment for sick, injured, and orphaned wildlife indigenous to the Pacific Northwest, while giving the public an opportunity to experience wildlife first-hand. Free tours (given on a reservation-only basis) are provided year ‘round, seven days a week.
Located on 24 acres of “living laboratory” adjacent to the Wild and Scenic portion of Oregon’s Rogue River, approximately 12 miles west of Grants Pass, Wildlife Images receives and cares for over 2,000 animals every year at no charge to individuals or organizations. Additionally, we offer many educational programs for the public, through onsite activities as well as through educational outreach programs.

Wildlife Images receives no funding from the state or federal governments. We rely solely on contributions from individuals and organizations to carry out our mission of rehabilitation and education.

Primary ways that you can participate include: becoming a member of Wildlife Images, attending our series of fundraising events, including Wildlife Images in your will or estate, adopting one of our resident animals, or by simply extending to us a tax-deductible donation.

For more information on membership; click here.

To learn more about including Wildlife Images in your will or estate, as well as extending to us a tax-deductible donation, please click here.

Information about our Adopt-an-Animal program can be found here.

Information on upcoming events can be found below.

Thanks!

Although Wildlife Images has qualified staff and a well-equipped facility, the fawns that we have received over the past couple of “Baby Seasons” are not surviving, for a variety of reasons.

Many orphaned animals received by us and all wildlife rehabilitators are extremely stressed, dehydrated and weakened – an issue complicated by having been fed an improper diet prior to being admitted to the facility. Fawns seem to suffer the most from this.

Most fawns brought in are from the resident urban deer population, where adenovirus, a highly contagious disease, is quite common. The virus causes hemorrhagic enteritis and is almost always fatal. Many of the fawns received exhibit signs of the disease.

THIS IS A TEMPORARY MORATORIUM. Wildlife Images and ODFW expect this moratorium to be in place for a minimum of two years, most likely several years. Viral diseases go through wild animal populations naturally (a commonly known example is raccoons and distemper). The deer population in this area has not had enough time to develop immunity to this relatively new viral disease. If, in the future, state biologists start to notice that fewer deer are succumbing to this disease, Wildlife Images and ODFW will consider lifting this moratorium.

More detailed information on this temporary moratorium can be found by clicking here

If you have any further questions about this issue, please call Wildlife Images at 476-0222 or ODFW at 826-8774.

For more information regarding what to do if you've come across a wild animal, please click here.

Wildlife Images Rehabilitation and Education Center relies on its army of volunteers to carry out its mission of animal rehabilitation and community education. They are putting out the call to recruit volunteer tour guides for 2008.

“Our tour guides are very important,” said Dave Siddon, Executive Director of Wildlife Images. “They’re the direct link between the animals and our visitors. It can be a fun, educational, and meaningful pastime for people of every age.”

2008 marks Wildlife Images’ 26th year and many of today’s adults toured the facility as children. Many remember their first tour. They recall the animals, and the birds, and most of all the friendly tour guide who knew all there was to know about every living thing that was there.

Now you have the chance to instill that same wondrous feeling in today’s visitors. Wildlife Images is looking for people interested in becoming tour guides. It’s a volunteer position complete with full training. Tour guides are needed year ‘round, and are called upon to donate approximately 6 to 8 hours per week.

“We’re very proud of the Tour Guides that we have had through the past three decades,” Siddon said. “They can truly make a difference in the way people relate to wildlife as well as the rest of the world around them.”

All volunteers must be a minimum of sixteen years of age. A tour guide training session is scheduled for early February. A volunteer application can be downloaded here or by or by calling (541) 476-0222

In addition to tour guides, we can always use volunteers who'd like to donate their time in the following areas:
~ Fundraising
~ Maintenance
~ Landscaping
~ Tending to the animals (feeding, cleaning, etc.)
~ Retail sales
~ General office help (filing, phones, etc.)
~ Computer (data entry, scanning, graphics, etc.)
~ Event help
~ Grant research and writing

For more information about volunteering at Wildlife Images click here.

The residents of Wildlife Images need our help to get through the winter. Your donation will help feed the eagles, bobcats, wolves, owls, raccoons, and our other rehabilitated animals throughout the entire year. Click here to make a donation today.

To learn more about the different strategies that wildlife has evolved to cope with the challenges for survival that this season brings, read on…

Wildlife In Winter

Winters in southeastern Oregon are pretty mild compared to other parts of North America, but can still be extremely hard for wildlife. For most animals, energy is harder to obtain and easier to lose in winter than in any other season. Cold, wind, snow, rain, ice, and longer nights can all tax an animal’s energy reserves at a time when replenishing that energy becomes more difficult.

Additionally, the shorter day length combined with the lower angle of the sun, means that photosynthesis stops or slows and most plant growth ceases. Since plants form the base of the food web, this means that there is less energy available for animals ― from insects to birds and mammals.

Animals do many different, amazing things to get through the winter. Wildlife has developed three basic strategies for coping with the austerity of winter: migration, hibernation, or adaptation. Many animals use a combination of these strategies.

Click here to learn more...

Historically, Native Americans revered the wolf. The wolf fulfilled two roles for the Indian: he was a powerful and mysterious animal, and so perceived by most tribes, and he was a medicine animal, identified with a particular individual, tribe or clan. At a tribal level, the attraction to the wolf was strong, because the wolf lived in a way that made the tribe strong. He provided food for all, including the old and sick members of the pack. He saw to the education of his children. He defended his territory against other wolves. At a personal level, the wolf embodied the qualities that made one stand out as a fine individual; his strength and stamina, ability to track well and go without food for long periods.

Wolves were federally protected as an "endangered" species in 1974, and Oregon's own state endangered species act lists the wolf as "endangered."

Today, many biologists believe that suitable habitat for wolves remains in Oregon, particularly in the southwestern and northeastern portions of the state.

Returning wolves to Oregon is important because wolves are significant "keystone" species, helping to maintain the predator-prey balance so necessary to a healthy, functioning ecosystem. Their return to Oregon would help restore this balance, at the same time benefiting many other wildlife species. In regions where wolves have been restored, biologists have nicknamed them the "engineers of biodiversity". This is because the wolf, which preferentially feeds on large wild ungulates such as deer and elk, leaves behind carcasses that become food for other species. From eagles, to ravens, to coyotes, to bears, to beetles and microscopic organisms, and even the forest itself – all benefit from the additional nutrients wolves add into the system. Recent studies are demonstrating that wolves even benefit woody riparian plants such as aspen, which can regenerate when elk browsing patterns change due to the wolf's presence.

Areas where wolves have been restored also have benefited economically due to increased ecotourism. For example, communities surrounding Yellowstone National Park have enjoyed a more than $10 million increase in spending from visitors since wolves were reintroduced there.

And contrary to the belief of some, the economic impact of wolves on the livelihoods of livestock producers has been minimal. In areas where wolves have been restored, they have been responsible for an average of less than one percent of livestock losses. And, in those rare instances where livestock have been killed, Defenders of Wildlife – a non-profit wildlife conservation group – maintains a wolf compensation fund that fully reimburses livestock producers full market value for livestock losses confirmed as wolf kills and 50 percent market value for losses deemed probable wolf kills.

Wolves are starting to re-colonize Oregon on their own. Wolves reintroduced in 1995-1996 to the Northern Rockies regions of Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho have established packs and territories and their offspring have begun to disperse, seeking mates and territories of their own. Since 1999, three confirmed wolves from Idaho have turned up in Oregon, including one which was found illegally shot.

On February 11th, 2005, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted the Wolf Conservation and Management Plan. The Plan was drafted by a diverse 14-member stakeholder group-- made up of representatives from conservation groups, hunters, ranchers, biologists, and others -- working with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW).

The Commission courageously adopted the Plan despite pressure from outside sources to delay or entirely halt its adoption, thus making Oregon the first western state to independently embrace wolves.
The Plan will:

• Guarantee protection to wolves that naturally migrate to Oregon
  
• Ensure wolf populations eventually exist on both the State’s east and west sides.
  
• Provide management tools to address conflicts with livestock and elk/deer populations instead of arbitrarily capping the total number of wolves allowed in Oregon.
  
• Allow for translocation of wolves within the state to assure conservation goals are met on the east and west side, a tool already used by the agency for other wildlife species.

We currently care for three resident wolves at Wildlife Images, Spirit, Tundra, and Lakota. They’re great animals and you can adopt them. When you adopt an animal at Wildlife Images, you’re providing care and treatment to injured, orphaned, and sick native North American Wildlife.

The cost of one adoption could buy a dose of antibiotics, or a badly needed x-ray. An adoption that is renewed might cover the expense to support one permanent resident for its entire life. At Wildlife Images we receive and care for over 1,000 animals in need of assistance every year. Approximately 80% of the animals that survive their initial injuries are released back into the wild. The ones that, for one reason or another, cannot be released become permanent residents. You can “adopt” one of these residents and ensure that the rest of their life is happy and healthy. Click here to learn more about our Animal Adoption program.

Thanks to Defenders of Wildlife for much of the information contained in this article. Defenders of Wildlife is a national, nonprofit membership organization dedicated to the protection of all native wild animals and plants in their natural communities. For more information about them, please visit www.defenders.org

What is the difference between a crow and a raven?

According to a grizzled veteran Rogue River fishing guide; a crow has seven pinion feathers at the ends of his wings and a raven has eight. Therefore the difference between a crow and a raven is “a matter of a pinion.”

Since prehistoric times, ravens and crows have been revered and reviled. Poets wrote about them, native people worshipped them and European settlers attempted to eradicate them. They were kept in the Tower of London because their vocalizations were thought to warn of approaching danger. Odin, the ruler of the Norse gods, kept two wolves at his side and a raven on each shoulder. The Vikings eagerly welcomed ravens as an omen of victory. In Tibetan folklore the raven is the messenger of the Supreme Being. The Irish thought ravens and crows were all-seeing and all-knowing. Many Native American beliefs depict the raven as a “trickster” spirit. To many Alaska Natives, ravens are the creator of the world and the bringer of daylight. The Inuit believe ravens help them hunt caribou, polar bears and seals by dipping their wings in the right direction.

Actually, crows and ravens, although in the same genus (Corvus) are different birds. (Think of leopards and tigers; both are in the genus Panthera, and are obviously related, but they are quite distinct animals.) In general, the biggest black species, usually with shaggy throat feathers, are called ravens and the smaller species are considered crows.
Common Ravens can be told from American Crows by a couple of things. The size difference, which is huge, is only useful with something else around to compare them with. Ravens are as big as Red-tailed Hawks, and crows are, well, crow sized. The wedge-shaped tail of the raven is a good character, if you can see it well. Crows sometimes show an apparent wedge shape to the tail, but almost never when it is fanned as the bird soars or banks (except for a brief time during molt in the summer).

More subtle characters include: ravens soar more than crows. If you see a "crow" soaring for more than a few seconds, check it a second time. Crows never do the somersault in flight that Common Ravens often do. Ravens are longer necked in flight than crows. The larger bill of the raven can be seen in flight, but it is actually less apparent than the long neck.

If seen perched in a good look, the huge bill and shaggy throat of a raven are diagnostic. The upper and lower edges of the bill are parallel for most of their length (3/4?) in ravens, while in crows the downward curve starts somewhere around 2/3 of the way out for males, and about halfway for females.

American Crows make the familiar "caw-caw," but also have a large repertoire of rattles, clicks, and even clear bell-like notes. However, they never give anything resembling the most common calls of Common Ravens. The most familiar call of a raven is a deep, reverberating croaking or "gronk-gronk." Only occasionally will a raven make a call similar to a crow's "caw" but even then it is so deep as to be fairly easily distinguished from a real crow. Ravens also make a huge variety of different notes. It has been said (attributed to Native Americans) that if you hear something in the forest that you cannot identify (assuming you know all the common forest sounds), it is a raven.

The greatest danger ravens face in the wild is from humans. Ravens are sometimes shot, trapped, poisoned or hit by cars in urban areas. They are unfortunately viewed as pests, even though they prey on small mammals and scavenge from carrion.

Ravens are protected through the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which was amended in 1972 to include corvids. This Act states that it is illegal to harm or kill certain migratory bird species. It is also illegal to possess any part of a migratory bird, egg or nest unless permitted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Okay just for fun, here are three Crow and Raven questions for you…
Question #1: Where do Crows and Ravens congregate to have a cold one?
Question #2: Why should you never let a Crow use your telephone?
Question #3: What is a Raven’s favorite sport?
(Answers below)

We’ve had a lot of snow out here in the shadow of the Siskiyous recently. Luckily for her, one of our resident cougars found a spot under a tree where she could sprawl in the sun.

Natasha (we call her ‘Tasha) is a 12-year-old female who came to Wildlife Images in 2001 after her owner – a man in Salem, Oregon – decided that a full-grown cougar was too much of a handful to be a good pet. He had purchased her as a cub from a breeder in Spokane, Washington, and had her de-clawed. The veterinarian who did the procedure did a poor job and many bone fragments remain in her front paws which have been causing her increasing discomfort. She is actually on medication to help relieve the pain.

Fortunately for ‘Tasha, a local veterinarian has been doing research on performing the difficult and delicate task of surgically removing the bone fragments from her paws. We’re confident that soon she’ll be feeling good enough to dance.

Tasha is lucky to have such friends who care as much for the animals as we do. Not all of the animals are that privileged, and that’s where you come in. By becoming a member of Wildlife Images you help all the animals that come to us for help. Please consider joining us in our mission today.

For more information, please click here.

The nights are long, the mornings are frozen, there’s snow and ice everywhere out there. Don’t you wish you could just curl up and sleep until spring? Well, there’s a bit of that going on here at Wildlife Images. As a matter fact, tours these days are abbreviated so as not to wake the slumbering bears who are napping until warmer weather.

Much research has been done on bear hibernation over the years. However, scientists were not the first people to look into a bear den. Members of the Winnebago Bear Clan called the first moon of January the bear moon because it is then that the cubs are born. The Indians also believed that mothers washed their newborn cubs with fresh snow. According to a clan saying, snow during the bear moon meant that another cub had been born and that the bears, which had control of the weather, were calling for fresh snow to wash their young. Mothers do lick their newborn cubs, but the use of snow has not been documented in modern times.

Hibernation for the black bear, as for other mammals, is primarily a mechanism to conserve energy through seasons of no food or water. For the bears at Wildlife Images, that also means shedding some of the weight they’ve built up during the summer. Between early fall and late spring, black bears will typically drop between 15 and 30 percent of their body weight. How's THAT for a New Year's Resolution!

Bears keep warm using their great bulk, their inches-deep layer of fat, and their fur, which more than doubles its insulative value during the fall. The fur is thickest on the back, neck, and sides and thinnest on the muzzle, legs, and underside. A hibernating bear sleeps in a curled-up position so that its crown is against the den floor and its nose is near its tail. This position minimizes a bear's surface area and reduces heat loss from the thinly furred areas. For extra insulation, bears sleep on a nest or leaves, grass, and other material that they rake into the den.

Once a black bear begins hibernating, it can doze for many months with a body temperature of 88°F or higher, which is within 12°F of summer levels. Bears can go on slumbering because their warm pelts and lower surface-to-mass ratio allow them to better retain body heat. This, in turn, enables them to cut their metabolic rate in half. Black bears keep their heads and torsos warm enough that they can wake if disturbed, though some may take awhile to do so.

With all the study of hibernating bears, a basic question remains: How do bears know when to go into or leave their dens? Certainly the bears live by some kind of internal clock, but what sets this clock – day length or some other cue – is unknown. Time of denning and emergence seems to vary to some extent with food supply, weather, and genetics, but how these and other possible factors interrelate is still a puzzle.

For the Winnebago Indians the answer was simple: the black bear is a clever and intelligent animal.

Originally posted January 17, 2007

An Andean condor soars over southern Peru's Colca Canyon. The giant vultures are one of the world's largest flying birds. Photograph by Heinz Plenge, courtesy PromPeru

The Wildlife Images Avian Conservation Facility will house our Rare and Endangered Breeding Program and will incorporate state-of-the-art technological advances such as web cams to allow unobtrusive study of uncommon birds.

Wildlife Images is developing an addition to our facility. Dedicated to global conservation and education, we are participating in an Andean Condor conservation program. These beautiful birds that inhabit the mountainous regions of South America, particularly the Andes, have wings over 10 feet and weight of up to 25 lbs. They are slowly becoming scarce throughout most of their range.

Through education and reintroduction, captive breeding programs ensure the genetic diversity and future survival of the species. We are honored to have this opportunity, but sponsorships are necessary to fund the program.

For more information on how you can help this magnificent birds, click here.

Question #1 Answer: The Crow Bar!
Question #2 Answer: Crows like to make long distance caws!
Question #3 Answer: Cow-quet!
Thank You!