This story is part of Michigan Public's series "Mornings in Michigan," which features morning moments from across the state.
When Michiganders find injured animals, many of them bring them to Howell Nature Center — a wildlife rehabilitation clinic and educational park in Livingston County. The center sees about 4,000 injured and orphaned animals every year.
The park sits on 230 acres of woods and wetlands. Michigan Public's Beth Weiler and I visited on a recent summer morning. We shadowed Jen Ewing, the center’s curator of wildlife and education.
Breakfast time
"The best time to come to our facility is in the morning," Ewing said. "Usually if people get here right when we open, they get to see a lot of the animals get fed, which is always a very fun, exciting time."
The center has 73 permanent residents. There are two bald eagles with partially amputated wings and an overly friendly coyote named Biscuit, who sniffed eagerly at my mic through a fence.
The park's two deer, Jane and Isi, were already waiting when Ewing opened their gate.
Jane and Isi squabbled over a balanced breakfast of raw vegetables and grains the deers' four stomachs can digest. Jane is here because she was kept illegally as a pet. Her breakfast came with a healthy dose of probiotic powder because of how she was treated.
"She was fed lots of improper foods like fruit snacks and Twizzlers and just things deer are not designed to eat," Ewing said. "So in that time, she became very, very friendly. And then she also never developed a healthy gut microbiome, so she pretty much always has diarrhea."
A mission to educate
When cases like Jane’s get reported to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the DNR often brings them here to Howell. The center also has licenses through the USDA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Tina Bruce is the center’s Chief Executive Officer. She said education is a key part of their mission.
"We have so many wonderful wildlife here in Michigan that play very important roles in our ecosystem, and they all have a purpose," Bruce said. "And anything from a coyote that may seem like a nuisance, they play a very specific role. So we want to educate the public on the reason each of these animals are here in our ecosystem, and how eliminating them affects the ecosystem in the long run."
Howell Nature Center was founded in 1963. The wildlife park is open to the public seven days a week year round. Entrance fees and educational programming cover a small portion of the costs but the nonprofit gets most of its funding from donors.
Food for thought
First thing every morning, Ewing and the other four wildlife keepers do a sweep of the park, making sure to set eyes on every one of the animals. They’re also watching for uninvited guests.
"One other thing we randomly have to look out for is making sure no other animals crawled into our habitat just because we are set in the woods," Ewing said. "We have lots of chipmunks and squirrels. And they know we feed our animals, so they be sneakin' in there sometimes to eat some of their food."
There were no freeloading rodents in sight, though, so the keepers set about feeding the animals and giving them any medications they needed.
Our next stop was a shed nestled between trees and several bird enclosures that have wire netting walls and ceilings. Inside the shed, there were raw vegetables and bird seed, several large barrels of mealworms, and some frozen dead mice thawing for the park’s carnivorous residents. When we arrived, Rae Herron — one of the keepers on duty — was setting up meals with a twist.
"Corvids are very smart, so we try to keep their brains active by giving them puzzle feeders," Herron said.
"Sometimes we'll put it in, like a paper bag so that they have to tear it apart to actually get to their food. Food is a big motivator for a lot of animals. So we just like to use it to get them using their brains so they don't get bored."
Some of this may sound familiar to pet owners — the crows have the same puzzle feeder as my dog — but Ewing said these activities are actually designed to promote natural behaviors and help the wildlife stay wild.
Don't get too friendly
Ewing also cautioned against feeding wild animals. Once animals learn that people mean food, they will keep coming back. That can be dangerous to people and interfere with the animals’ instincts.
That’s the case with a wild turkey named Blue. Ewing described him as “mal-imprinted.”
"It means that they formed their identity bond with people. They don't necessarily realize that they are a turkey. He still does all of the behaviors that a turkey would do, but he sees people and identifies with us more than a wild turkey."
She added that Blue never would have found a mate in the wild.
"He is a nice, handsome male and he displays very, very nice. All the females do try and come up and flirt with him through the fence, but he actually he never flirts back, and never shows any interest in them. He's honestly kicked at the fence before to get them to run away."
Blue flirts with his keeper staff instead.
Back into the wild
Blue and the other animals who live here lead very comfortable lives, but many brought to the clinic don’t survive. The ones that do get rehabilitated have to pass a lot of tests before they're released.
For birds, the center has a specially designed flight pen that’s shaped like an "L" to help assess their abilities. Ewing said they also check predators’ hunting skills using live prey.
"We want to make sure animals are at 100% when they get released, or as close to it as we could possibly get, because all the other animals in the wild are already at 100%," she said. "So if we have animals that still have a slight issue then they're prone to be outcompeted by those other species that are still out in the wild and thriving."
The Howell staff always releases animals back in the same area where they were found so they will know where to find food and water. And the day before our visit, Ewing got to do just that. She helped release a red-tailed hawk.
For CEO Tina Bruce, that’s one of the best parts of the job.
"If you've ever seen a wildlife release — I don't care if it's a bunny or an eagle — it is the most profound thing you've ever seen when you're able to give them their home back," Bruce said.
If you find an animal that you think may need help, the staff at the nature center urge you not to intervene right away. Instead, they say you should call their wildlife helpline. They also have a detailed guide on their website, including a list of other licensed rehabilitators in the state.
Editor's note: Quotes in this article have been edited for length and clarity. You can hear the complete audio version of the story near the top of this page.
