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Yahoo
21 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Gila Wildlife Rescue rehabilitates between 150 to 300 animals each year
SILVER CITY, N.M. (KRQE) — In Silver City, there's a nonprofit that's been rehabilitating birds and mammals for over 45 years. Gila Wildlife Rescue is an organization ran by Dennis and Denise Miller, who aim to release animals back into the wild after they've been through the rehab process. They care for anywhere between 150 to 300 animals a year. Story continues below New Mexico News Insiders: What Happens When The Rio Grande Runs Dry? News: 'You are very spiteful': Community confronts McKinley County DA over funding issues Trending: VIDEO: Man arrested, accused of setting father's house on fire and stealing emergency vehicle News: Repeat drunk driver saw jail as 'free vacation;' then an opportunity came in Bernalillo County 'We don't have any educational animals that we keep long-term or anything like that,' Dennis explains. 'Everything goes back out into the wild. All of our facilities are in our backyard. It has three large flight cages, including a 100-foot flight cage for eagles and things.' Although the rescue is permitted to rehabilitate all wildlife, they primarily focus on birds of prey including eagles, hawks, falcons, owls, and even vultures. Some common culprits for New Mexico specifically include great-horned owls, red-tailed hawks and Swainson's hawks. A bird could need rehabilitation for a variety of reasons. During the spring and summer, the rescue keeps busy with babies who either get blown out of their next during a windstorm, or get pushed out of their nest due to it being too full. The rest of the year, the rescue primarily sees injuries. That could include an animal being hit by a car, being shot, or being poisoned. Outside of that, there are cases of disease including West Nile virus and avian influenza. Gila Wildlife Rescue is partnered up with New Mexico Game and Fish, as well as El Paso Zoo. 'The veterinarians out there [at El Paso Zoo] run a wildlife rehab program for raptors just like we do, but they don't do any of the rehabilitation. They just do the initial care. And so for about 10 or 15 years now, we have received all of their birds to rehabilitate,' said Dennis. 'And even though we're almost three hours away in Silver City, we take our serious injuries to them for surgery and things like that.' In over four decades worth of rehabilitating animals, Dennis said one of his favorite success stories stems back to when he got a call while he was teaching a biology class. A man had hit a golden eagle close to Silver City on his way to work. When Dennis got out there, it took him over an hour to find the bird. When he did, he said heard another eagle in the area, but didn't think much of it at the time. At the time, there was a transport system set up for sending injured birds via plane to a veterinarian in Española. But when Dennis got to the flight at Grand Canyon Airport, the plane was too full for the injured eagle. That was until a good Samaritan stepped in 'A gentleman sitting there waiting to fly out overheard us. And so he asked the lady at the desk if possibly we could let the bird, you know, strap it into his seat and he'll take the next flight tomorrow,' said Dennis. 'So he gave up his seat. And it flew up there and got surgery, only because he was strapped to the passenger's seat.' The eagle successfully underwent surgery and the entire rehabilitation process, and when Dennis went to release the bird at its original site, it reunited with another eagle – the one Dennis had heard during the initial rescue. That's one of many stories for Gila Wildlife Rescue. Recently, Dennis and Denise published a book, 'Keeping Them Wild,' highlighting those stories. 'It's a fairly detailed book with a section in the back on both raptor and carnivore diversity in southwest New Mexico, which is pretty incredible on how diverse the area is of wildlife,' Dennis explains. 'And so it goes to a lot of the different species that are in our area and kind of connects them to our experiences we've had with them in rehabilitating them.' There's also hundreds of bird photographs taken by Denise in the book. The rescue runs entirely off of donations, with no state nor federal funding. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
South China Morning Post
03-08-2025
- South China Morning Post
How do you Kakadu? Crocodile cruises and safari glamping in Australia's Northern Territory
'If you get eaten by a croc,' our guide Dennis Miller says with a grin, 'I'll try to bring back what's left of you.' In true Aussie fashion , he is only half joking. We are, after all, cruising the Yellow Water Billabong in Kakadu National Park, home to around 10,000 crocodiles – or 10 per cent of all the crocs in the Northern Territory. In the dry season from May to October, they sun themselves on the sandy banks. But now, in early April, as the last rains of the wet season linger, they slide silently beneath the surface, practically invisible and certainly deadly to any creature unlucky enough to cross their path. The Yellow Water Billabong, Kakadu's most famous wetland, is home to some 10,000 crocodiles. Photo: Handout Advertisement As our boat slices through the flooded wetland, we scan the billabong for ripples and reptilian eyes, while Dennis brings the landscape to life with tales of its seasonal rhythms. 'Big wets [periods of high rainfall] rejuvenate the land,' he says. 'More fish, more birds, more for everyone to eat.' We spot magpie geese, the sacred kingfisher and a white-bellied sea eagle scanning the water from above. Finally, a keen-eyed passenger spots a lone saltwater crocodile perched motionless on an exposed tree root, its knobbled back barely distinguishable from the bark. Encompassing nearly 20,000 square kilometres, Kakadu National Park enjoys Unesco World Heritage status for its blend of rich Aboriginal heritage and diverse, pristine wilderness. Photo: Tourism NT/Hello Emily Finally laying eyes on the fearsome predator is the ideal finale to our river cruise, but in truth, our adventure has just begun. The Top End of Australia's Northern Territory, a tropical frontier at the very northern edge of the continent, is brimming with untamed beauty. With epic waterfalls, ancient rock escarpments and lush, wildlife-rich wetlands, the region is fast emerging as Australia's version of a safari getaway, offering close encounters not only with crocodiles, but also wallabies, dingoes, wild horses and a staggering array of birdlife. At the heart of it all lies Kakadu National Park, a vast 20,000 square kilometre expanse that is not only Australia's largest national park, but also a living cultural landscape. Who's watching who? Wallabies in Kakadu National Park study the visitors. Photo: Karen Tee Kakadu has been shaped in part by the local Aboriginal people , whose ancestors have cared for this land for 65,000 years. Today, these custodians continue practices such as cold fire burning – carefully timed, low-intensity fires that clear areas of underbrush, so reducing the chance of catastrophic wildfires – and share their deep knowledge when guiding tourists.
