A survey of current mammal rehabilitation and release practices

Mammal rehabilitation is carried out in hundreds of centres worldwide, requiring a large investment of time, personnel and funds. Although there are numerous published studies focusing on post-release outcomes, few have discussed the methods employed in rehabilitation. As an important first step toward addressing this, data were collected directly from rehabilitation centres about their aims, methods employed and assessment of outcomes. A survey of mammal rehabilitation centres was conducted with data collected in the form of responses to multiple-choice questions and written responses. Our results indicated a number of challenges, including: problems surrounding social group formation, lack of predator avoidance training, limited or no pre-release medical screening, release of animals exhibiting stereotypic behaviours, frequently short-term (<6 months) post-release monitoring, with only a third of centres assessing the success of releases. Although many factors may influence the success of rehabilitation, improvements to monitoring and assessment are needed before the effects of any changes to protocols could be determined. Extended post-release monitoring and thorough assessment should be a part of any future mammal rehabilitation projects. With a view to improving the rehabilitation phase, we have developed a decision tree to assist the assessment of mammals at each stage of the rehabilitation process. This could be easily adapted to create detailed species-specific models in the future.