Rensselaerville

On a porch in the Huyck Preserve, wildlife rehabilitator Kelly Martin held a tiny bottle to a baby porcupine's snout.

The president of the New York State Wildlife Rehabilitation Council has worked with the state Department of Environmental Conservation since 1979 to save the lives of injured animals, large and small.

But this spring new guidelines on what licensed rehabilitators can do spawned two lawsuits.

A deer named "Jane Doe" is at the heart of the first suit on Long Island, challenging a requirement that injured deer must be released or killed within two days.

In May Virginia Frati, director of the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center in Suffolk County, claimed Jane Doe was not fully rehabilitated or ready for release. She obtained a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the rule.

The second suit, filed by Martin in Erie County in June, contends the DEC failed to include New York's 1,400 licensed wildlife rehabilitators in the decision-making process that led to dozens of new guidelines stipulated in a letter sent out in February.

"It is an issue of fairness and transparency," Martin said.

The DEC has argued it is not changing rules, but modifying interpretation of existing ones. DEC biologist Joseph Therrien said the agency's Bureau of Wildlife began reviewing the rules in 2015 in response to concerns that rehabilitators were allowing deer and other big game to become habituated to humans.

"There is a documented pattern of licensed wildlife rehabilitators in New York who are reluctant to either euthanize or release white-tailed deer," Therrien said in affidavit that is part of the Long Island case.

A wildlife rehabilitation license is a privilege that is discretionary and revocable, the DEC says.

"Wildlife is the property of the state, not the property of rehabilitators, like Frati, who temporarily possess wildlife for the purposes of rendering care to the animals so that the animals can be returned to the wild," the statement said.

The DEC argued that Frati's claim that vision-impaired Jane Doe wasn't ready for release was "vague."

"It is unclear when this deer will be ready to be released, if it is not ready now, or if this deer will ever be ready to be released," the statement read.

Frati said she is keeping Jane Doe as a foster deer for fawns. A temporary restraining order allows her to keep Jane Doe past the deadline.

"I don't think at this point that rehabilitators are going to be happy with putting anything to sleep that they possibly could save," said Frati, who is scheduled for a June 28 court date.

A DEC spokesman said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

Not every injury can be healed in two days, said Eric Brown, caretaker of Outpost No. 4 in Delanson. He recalled a deer with hypothermia rescued in winter from the Mohawk River that required many more days of rehabilitation.

Martin said her goal is for the DEC to return to its old licensing conditions until next year, after changes can be vetted with her and other wildlife rehabilitators. She recalled when the DEC approached the newly formed rehabilitation council 37 years ago for assistance.

"DEC wanted to license this activity to take wild animals out of the hands of the untrained public," Martin said. "We worked with them in partnership to develop a program that for many years set the standard across the country.

"This past year the collaboration seems to have ended," Martin said.