Animal Rehabilitation

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue focuses on animal rehabilitation, the process of assisting disabled and/or displaced animals gain, or regain, the capabilities needed to live free in suitable natural habitats. Over the last 30 years, as the number of individuals and species in need of rehabilitation has increased, animal rehabilitation has grown from independent small projects run by dedicated individuals to networks of large professionally staffed operations. The accumulated experience has increased awareness of the many complexities involved. Prominent among them are its multiple, sometimes incompatible values and aims (conservation, welfare, legal, ethical), the multi-dimensional nature of the process itself (e.g., medical, nutritional, genetic, ontogenetic, fostering feral competencies, undoing or compensating for damage), addressing both taxon-specific and generalized needs, monitoring and improving effectiveness, and managing rehabilitants’ impacts on the habitats and communities into which they are placed. Equally clear is the need for more systematic, well-informed standards and guidelines for animal rehabilitation, on issues ranging from balancing the multiple values involved to developing programs that are effective in preparing rehabilitants for feral life, establishing criteria for assessing individual rehabilitants’ preparedness, and responsible monitoring and post-rehabilitation practices. This special issue aims to further the development of such standards and guidelines for animal rehabilitation. Manuscripts of original research using methods appropriate to the topic will be considered. Topics could include, but are not limited to, the issues and concerns sketched above.

Prof. Dr. Anne E. Russon
Guest Editor

• animal rehabilitation
• wildlife rehabilitation
• animal welfare
• animal conservation
• animal learning
• animal reintroduction
• rehabilitation medicine