Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation is looking for wild foods for wildlife in rehab. Castle Country Radio sat down with Director, Debbie Pappas to get all the details on how you can help feed the wildlife she is rehabilitating at her facility.

“No lead. They’re required to use steel shot. But we can’t take rabbits if they’re shooting with lead, because the fact that things get dispersed throughout that body. What a horrible problem I would be as a rehabilitator if I fed food to my animals that have lead in it and they ended up coming in, as lets say hit by a car, and now they have lead poisoning because of something I fed them. So we can’t accept anything with lead. Come on, most people are using tungsten and copper, let’s make the switch, it’s easy, the military did it, it’s easy,” said Pappas. The food can give them more nutrition, provide comfort to the animal, it keeps them wild, plus the older birds can teach the younger birds how to eat the wild foods.

If you do want to donate wild foods to Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation Pappas prefers the meat all intact. “I prefer having them with their, everything intact, because in the wild nobody’s going to remove their intestines or anything, they need to learn that’s not a part you eat. You know if we have adults in with juveniles, they can show them, they’ll watch, that’s how they learn and so we offer them these foods and they learn what to do. Thank goodness, yes, we have to have a lot of things bones, if something is just eating meat, they’re not going to do well. They need bones, they need fur, they all contain keratin and calcium,” explained Pappas. Basically, not items that have been shot with lead or that has been found dead and you don’t know why. A variety of wild foods that the facility can use could be hind quarters of an elk and fish.

If you have any questions about Second Chance Wildlife Rehabilitation or what types of wild foods they can use contact Debbie Pappas at (435) 650-3441.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SECOND CHANCE WILDLIFE REHABILITATION