Alberta wildlife hospital says animal intake on the rise, 'interactions with people' largely to blame

A major wildlife rehabilitator in Alberta says the number of patients coming in is on the rise — and interactions with humans are largely to blame.

The Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation, located about 30 kilometres north of Calgary, has admitted more than 38,000 animals since it was founded in 1993. This year alone, it's taken in more than 2,000.

"We have seen an upward trend in the number of patients coming in, pretty much since the pandemic began," said the centre's communications co-ordinator, Scottie Potter.

Potter says the centre first attributed the increased patient intake to people spending more time outdoors and encountering more animals, since there wasn't much else to do during lockdown.

But when the pandemic ended, those numbers didn't come down.

"Animals are more present in people's lives than in the past," Potter said. "Wildlife ... has fewer places to go, and so they end up going into places that have people."

The centre has taken in 146 different species this year. It works with everything from the province's most common wildlife to more unusual patients like a silver fox or Virginia opossum.

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"The vast majority of animals end up in our animal hospital because of interactions with people or human-made structures — things like vehicle collisions, things like catching themselves on barbed wire," said Potter.

According to the provincial government's Alberta Wildlife Watch program, 13,051 roadkill carcasses were documented in the province last year.

Potter said "driving carefully, with awareness, particularly on rural roads" is the number one way to avoid harming animals.

Another major cause of wildlife injuries and fatalities is attacks by domestic cats, Potter said.

A 2013 study published in the Avian Conservation and Ecology journal says that house cats and feral cats are estimated to kill 100 million to 350 million birds every year in Canada. A more recent study from the University of Guelph says that number is closer to 60 million birds.

The City of Calgary’s Responsible Pet Ownership Bylaw helps curb cat predation of birds by requiring cats stay on their owner’s property.

Helping sometimes does more harm than good

On the flip side, well-intentioned human interactions with wildlife can also be problematic.

"When it comes to animals like fawns and jackrabbits, another major issue is people accidentally kidnapping the babies," Potter said.

She explained that with some species, it's totally normal for a mother to leave a baby alone for a long period of time.

"Unfortunately, people think that the animal is in need of help and will intervene before they call us."

Endangered habitat

Humans are also persistently affecting animal habitats in the province.

Conservation specialist Ruiping Luo pointed out that the grasslands ecosystem, which makes up much of southern Alberta, is considered one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world.

"The grasslands are where our crops are grown," said Luo, who works with the Alberta Wilderness Association. "They're where we're putting most of our housing developments and, especially if you look at Alberta, the population is [largely] based."

Luo said increased encroachment of urban development on wild areas in Alberta puts wildlife at risk.

"Especially in the outer areas where this new development is happening, it's very spread out. Partly, that might just be because we have so much space," she said of the Prairies. "We're not really restricted by mountains or by lakes, by water in any way, so we can just keep building outwards. But there's problems in that."

'Tip the scales'

Potter said the work being done at the Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation is "quite critical," especially as many animals don't survive negative encounters with humans and aren't lucky enough to recover at the centre.

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"For every [animal] that doesn't make it, that doesn't survive an interaction with people, we are able to give a second chance to ... another animal of the same species," said Potter. "And so we're able to tip the scales in favour of the animals, and hopefully get things a little bit more evened out."