LI wildlife rescuers seeing surge in dehydrated, malnourished animals due to drought

On a recent morning, Strong Island Animal Rescue League president Frankie Floridia entered the backyard of a Holtsville home to find a young buck trapped in a pool cover.

The buck's antlers had gotten tangled in the cover, with his mouth just above the water, Floridia recalled. He and another rescuer were able to cut the cover off the animal, he said, and safely lift its 200-pound body out of the pool.

The buck was "completely exhausted, drenched and cold,” Floridia said.

The October rescue was one of the few that have ended happily in recent months, as Floridia and other wildlife rescuers on Long Island said they have seen a surge in dehydrated and malnourished animals impacted by the drought. 

Floridia said he has rescued several deer, rabbits, geese, raccoons and even a possum.

Since August, the Sweetbriar Nature Center in Smithtown has received at least a dozen calls about deer collapsing in pools after they tried to drink water captured on the covers, according to Janine Bendicksen, director of wildlife rehabilitation. Not all have survived.

Vegetation, which animals rely on for hydration and nutrients, has also been scarce.

Bendicksen said as of Wednesday, the center was at full capacity, with seven geese in its care. In a typical year, the center might have one goose, she said.

The increase is likely due to a lack of rain preventing grass — a key staple in a goose’s diet — from growing, she said.

“We started getting in tons of gulls and geese who were emaciated," she said. "Their feathers were all broken and just disheveled," which she attributed to a nutritional deficiency.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation told Newsday it has not received any reports or observed any increases in wildlife in distress during this low-precipitation period. However, it said that during times of drought and other prolonged weather conditions, it is common to observe behavioral changes in wildlife.

Rose Lynch, wildlife rehabilitator at Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center in Hampton Bays, said the facility has also cared for dehydrated animals, such as water fowl, recently. She believes this is part of a larger picture of extreme weather “pushing animals into situations that they normally would not be in.”

The center recently took in a bat that woke up from early hibernation on an uncommonly warm day, but was stunned the next day when the temperature dropped, she said.

“They're going into hibernation and basically getting dried out and then waking up and being, like, I need water,” Lynch said.

Bendicksen said this week's rain is not nearly enough to sustain animals in the coming months.

Hibernating and non-hibernating animals generally stock up on food in the fall to survive the winter, she said. Deer, for example — who “eat everything," including grass, berries and acorns — depend on fat storage, as they do not hibernate.

“In the fall, that's their time to really gorge themselves,” Bendicksen said. “Nothing has been out there for the whole fall. It's just been a dry wasteland.”

Even if the coming winter turns out to be mild, she believes animals will still suffer due to the lack of food now.

“It's going to be a bad winter," she said.