🧤 Restraint & Physical Exam · 5 min
Intake: the questions and the records
Why this matters
The history you take in the first two minutes shapes treatment, and the record you keep is a license condition.
By the end of this lesson you will be able to
- List the questions to ask when accepting an animal
- Describe what a rehabilitation record must contain
- Explain why safety, not the animal, is the first priority in a rescue
Ask everything
Standard practice on intake is to ask as many questions as possible, ideally from a predetermined form so nothing is missed:
- Where exactly was the animal found? This determines the release site.
- How long have they had it, and did they feed it? Wrong food and delay change your treatment plan.
- Was any human or pet bitten or scratched? This is a health department question, not a curiosity.
- What was it doing when found? Was a cat or dog involved? Was there a known trauma?
Records
Your records should include admittance data (background on the animal), physical exam findings, and treatments and daily observations. The annual Wildlife Rehabilitator Log requires every individual animal, correctly identified by species, who you received it from, the date received, and the final disposition.
Safety first, always
In rescuing an animal in the field, the rehabilitator's paramount concern is the safety of the people involved, not securing the animal at all cost. Know the natural defenses of the species before you reach for it: a raptor's feet, a heron's beak, a mammal's teeth and claws. Unless you are properly prepared and equipped to restrain a given species, you should not accept it.
Three basic tools: a towel or blanket, heavy gloves (welder's gloves), and eye protection. Catchpoles and nets subdue larger animals from a safe distance. When using a catchpole, encircle the head and one forelimb, never the neck alone, or you will strangle the animal as the loop tightens.
This lesson is part of the NY Wildlife Rehabilitator Exam course. Open it in the course to answer the retrieval checks that go with it, track what you have read, and quiz the whole unit. Lessons, quizzes and the glossary are free.