Terry Pulver started giving injured wildlife a hand about 20 years ago, when she and her husband, Charles, set up a rehabilitation facility at their farm along the Pembina Hills escarpment west of Mountain, N.D.

A game warden for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, Charles Pulver came by his passion for wildlife naturally, and encountering injured animals and birds was all in a day's work, Terry Pulver said.

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Terry didn't approach the practice without experience, either, having attended classes in the wildlife department at North Dakota State University and studying hematology and parasitology at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Charles Pulver died in November 1995 at age 46 of a heart attack, but his wife's commitment to wildlife lived on. She conducted state park programs, lyceums in schools and even spoke at a tri-state symposium sponsored by the Humane Society.

She also continued caring for birds and animals. Over the years, Pulver's rehabilitation roster featured everything from a moose calf to rabbits and raptors. Her facility has plenty of space, including a 50- by 20-foot pole shed and a massive cage measuring 35 feet long by 25 feet wide by 25 feet high for birds such as hawks and owls to regain their wings.

"We exercised them in that cage, and if they had a good flight pattern and were able to kill, we knew they were ready," Pulver said. "We've had very good luck that way."

Like wildlife rehabilitators everywhere, Pulver continued her husband's legacy out of the goodness of her heart and received no financial gain.

"This wasn't meant to impact wildlife populations in any way; it was just there to help," Pulver said. "That's all it was designed for, so people don't have to watch the suffering. We've had great success."

Permit denied

For Pulver, the success came to an unexpected halt in August, when the North Dakota Game and Fish Department denied her request for a state rehabilitator's permit. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services long has required rehabilitators to have a federal permit for handling migratory birds or raptors, but Pulver said she knew of no state requirements until more recently.

"I never got a state one from Game and Fish because they never told me," Pulver said. "I had no idea. So, I thought, 'Gee, I'll get one,' and that's when I found out they were no longer doing this."

In denying Pulver's request, Game and Fish sent her a letter explaining that wildlife should be kept wild and that the rehabilitation process often makes them unnaturally dependent on humans.

"I was shocked," Pulver said. "They said, 'Let nature take its course, and if we are to rehabilitate, it would take food out of another animal's mouth.' I thought that was kind of crude."

Mike McKenna, chief of the Game and Fish Department's Conservation and Communications Division, said the department historically permitted a few wildlife rehabilitators around the state but has been discouraging the practice for the past decade or so.

Game and Fish, he said, manages populations and not individual animals.

"It stems from the true philosophy that wildlife needs to be kept wild or it isn't wild anymore," McKenna said. "It becomes something else. It becomes dependent on the rehabilitator. When you take an animal out of the wild, you've doomed it."

Given that philosophy, McKenna said, issuing Pulver a permit would have been irresponsible.

"Wild animals aren't like stray cats and dogs," he said. "Stray dogs, you can rehabilitate them, but chances are, they live out their life in a shelter until they die. The point is, you take an animal from the wild and put those same standards on it, I think you're really dealing with apples and oranges, but that always seems to escape people. The criteria you use for an abandoned kitty isn't the same criteria you use for an abandoned deer."

Empty facility

Pulver said her federal permit is good until 2010, but without a state permit, she no longer can take in wildlife of any kind. As a result, her facility sits empty.

And she's not happy about it.

"My husband believed anything that's breathing deserves a chance," Pulver said. "Game and Fish is treating animals like a commodity. If they don't make revenue off the animals, they don't want to deal with them."

McKenna, who made the decision to deny Pulver's permit, said he understands her concerns, even if he disagrees.

"I'm sympathetic to the emotion," McKenna said. "I love people that are passionate and want to do the right thing, I just think the way we're approaching the problem is reasonable and sensible. The fact is, we do listen and we do care."

And keeping wildlife wild is the best way to show that care, McKenna maintains. The natural world, he said, isn't like a Walt Disney movie, where Thumper and Bambi go down the trail and live happily ever after.

"I don't want to get into the emotional argument of being nice or mean to wildlife," he said. "In having wild populations in North Dakota, you have to have some rules, and one of the rules is you can't just raise them in your image and likeness and let them go or keep them."

Disease concerns also are an issue whenever wildlife is lumped into close quarters, McKenna said; there are a lot of unknowns about the implications.

"Given our responsibility in managing this public trust, we believe this is the best way to do it," McKenna said. "And we have yet to hear any factual arguments that would lead us to believe otherwise."

Still, McKenna said, the Game and Fish's view toward wildlife rehabilitation isn't a hard-and-fast policy, and the department will make occasional exceptions.

"If the Fish and Wildlife Service wants a golden eagle rehabilitated in a real place and released, we'll defer to their good judgment on that," he said.

Game and Fish also will issue special permits for zoos or legitimate educational facilities to keep wildlife for display.

But it's a one-way ticket, McKenna said, and such birds or animals won't return to the wild.

"I'm convinced in the overall best interests of wildlife populations, this is the way to go," McKenna said. "It will disappoint some people initially, but sometimes you have to take that initial hit."

One rehabilitator

The Game and Fish Department's decision to deny Pulver's permit leaves the state with one licensed rehabilitator. Kathy Day, a retired veterinarian and wildlife rehabilitator near Devils Lake, has a lifetime permit she received several years ago.

"The permit I have basically says if you get sick of it and don't want to do it anymore, let us know," Day said.

Given the lack of rehabilitators, Day said people sometimes drive several hours to drop off an animal. Last year, for example, someone from Fargo brought her a squirrel. More recently, she received an injured eagle from near Burlington, N.D., northwest of Minot.

"That's crazy to have someone come that far," Day said. "People call us because they don't know who else to call."

Day takes on all kinds of wildlife to rehabilitate, and she's gotten about 25 calls each of the past two years from people who encounter abandoned fawns or baby raccoons.

It might not sit well, but McKenna said Game and Fish recommends that people who encounter wildlife, whether injured or a baby that appears to be abandoned, should simply leave it be.

"What you do is leave it alone and hope it makes it but probably know it won't," McKenna said. "If you raise it, what happens when it gets wild and big? You're damned if you do and damned if you don't. We've fought with this for the last 20 years, this paradox."

As a wildlife rehabilitator, Day takes a different view. Many times, she said, the situations that result in injured or abandoned wildlife come from human interactions. Even in cases where a bird or animal has to be put down, at least its suffering isn't prolonged, she said.

"You've got to have some responsibility for things," she said. "I think it's a moral failing not to be able to at least call someone.

"One on one, an animal doesn't mean diddly-squat in the grand scheme of things, but if it was an injury that was created by humans, I think there's a responsibility to at least assess the situation."

Day, whose rehabilitation operation sits on a seven-acre site, said she's had good success rehabilitating mammals because they're kept away from people and dogs. Birds are trickier, she said, especially raptors that must regain the coordination they need to hunt and survive.

Day said she used to work closely with Pulver, often sending her raptors and other large birds the Pembina Hills facility was better equipped to handle.

"She's set up much better than me, and she's got 10 times the experience and the training," Day said.

This year, though, Day said she got her own flight cage to accommodate larger birds.

"You have to be ever so careful about which birds you release," Day said. "Until we had this little flight cage, it was just a guessing game. To fly is one thing; to be able to fly and catch your prey is a whole other ball game."

DNR supports rehabilitation

East of the Red River, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources takes a more positive view of wildlife rehabilitation than North Dakota's Game and Fish Department.

Katie Haws, nongame wildlife specialist for the DNR in Bemidji said Minnesota has 56 rehabilitators statewide, but only two in the northwestern part of the state -- one in Warroad and one in Bemidji.

Minnesota also has two of the state's premier rehab facilities in the Raptor Center and the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, both located in the Twin Cities.

Haws said the DNR doesn't spend any money on rehabilitation aside from the costs of administering the initial tests and facility inspections required to receive a permit. Still, she said, the DNR views rehabilitation as a viable option for returning birds and animals to the wild.

The exception is deer, which the DNR no longer allows because of concerns over diseases such as chronic wasting disease and bovine TB.

"If we saw no value in it from the standpoint of the species, we probably wouldn't support it, either," Haws said of wildlife rehabilitation. "You certainly do make a difference in terms of the individual animal in some cases. Obviously, if they're not allowed to survive, it will have a different outcome."

The public relations aspect can't be overlooked, either.

"For PR, it makes a big difference," Haws said. "If people see an animal and cannot bear the thought of euthanizing it themselves, there is an option available if a person is motivated to drive far enough."

In North Dakota, McKenna of Game and Fish said he hasn't paid much attention to how other states handle wildlife rehabilitation.

"I'd hate to say what we're doing is a recipe for anyone other than us," he said. "And what they're doing isn't a recipe for anyone else other than them."

Pulver, the former rehabilitator in Mountain, said she's not sure what recourse she might have to get her practice restored, but taking the issue to the Legislature when North Dakota lawmakers convene in January is a possibility.

Getting others who feel the same way to contact the governor and express their concerns also might help, Pulver said.

Meantime, her hands are tied.

"I hate turning down the phone calls," she said. "It's absolutely killing me. (Game and Fish) said let nature take its course, so why are they interfering with nature? If they want to look bad forever in the public eye, they're well on their way."

Dokken reports on outdoors. Reach him at (701) 780-1148; (800) 477-6572, ext. 148; or send e-mail to bdokken@gfherald.com.