29-04-2025
Morrisey signs bill allowing West Virginia DNR to issue wildlife rehabilitation permits
Rebecca Perry Franks, director of animal care and eduction at Heritage Farm in Huntington, approached lawmakers with the idea about making wildlife rehabilitation legal in West Virginia. (Heritage Farm | Courtesy photo)
A bill approved by Gov. Patrick Morrisey this week will allow the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources to issue permits to people to rehabilitate sick and injured wildlife. Morrisey signed House Bill 2836 on Monday.
Rebecca Perry Franks, director of animal care and education at Heritage Farm and Museum in Huntington, helped champion the bill through the legislative session.
A Huntington native, Franks said she fell in love with caring for sick and injured wildlife while interning at the Ohio Wildlife Center during college. She's certified through the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council but hasn't been able to do that work since she returned to her home state. That made her start looking into how to change state law to make it legal for professionals here, she said.
'It's not something that everybody should be trying to do,' Franks said. 'It takes training and careful consideration to make sure everybody is healthy, both people and animals throughout the process, but I truly believe that it has been hugely beneficial for the native wildlife of our surrounding states, and will be for ours as well.'
Under current West Virginia law, possession of wildlife outside of hunting season is illegal, said deputy DNR director Wendy Greene. The exceptions are avian centers, which are licensed by the federal government.
Franks also runs a nonprofit wildlife hotline that takes questions from people who come across wild animals that are in danger or in need. Last year she fielded more than 270 calls between April and August, she said.
'It continues to be very frustrating to have to tell everybody 'hey, it's currently illegal in this state to rehabilitate wildlife. All I can tell you to do is how to help keep it comfortable in its wild environment,'' Franks said. 'Obviously that's not the answer people like to hear. They want to be able to help. And a lot of people were taking matters into their own hands, against professional advice.'
The bill authorizes the DNR to establish rules for the wildlife rehabilitation permit program. While the bill is effective July 10, Greene said the DNR will have to establish rules and have them approved by the Legislature before it can accept applications. That won't happen immediately, she said.
'We won't have anything definitive in place for several months,' Greene said. '…the law is passed, but it doesn't mean folks can go out right now and grab up wildlife.'
The wildlife would be required to be returned to the wild unless it's permanently impaired, the bill says.
Heritage Farm currently has a nature center that educates visitors on native wildlife and domestic livestock. Once the application process is open, Franks hopes to be permitted to do wildlife rehabilitation and release as a part of her work there.
'We're an Appalachian history museum,' she said. 'We celebrate natural history and cultural history, and why not help preserve our native wildlife as a part of that mission?'
The bill was sponsored by Del. Matthew Rohrbach, R-Cabell, who said the bill is a good way to help wildlife and, in the case of Heritage Farm, educate children who visit the Huntington attraction.
'I think we all hope that it will help injured wildlife and also increase awareness of veterinary sciences,' Rohrbach said. 'I could see a young child, perhaps visiting Heritage Farm, for instance, although it could be just as easily the [Oglebay] Good Zoo in Wheeling or other places, but seeing some of this being carried out, and then a young girl or young boy might get interested in veterinary science, go to veterinary school because of their exposure to something like this.'
The DNR intends to make the requirements the same as those of the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council, Greene said.
According to the bill, permits are prohibited for people who have been convicted of charges related to wildlife, animal cruelty or animal welfare.
A fiscal note says the new program will cost the DNR about $92,000 per year. The division plans to assign a wildlife biologist and a secretary to work the program during half their time. The money for the program will be reallocated from other parts of the agency, the fiscal note says. Greene said the number is purely an estimate.
'We have no idea how many people want to apply, how many people will be qualified,' she said. 'We anticipate part of the application process being our biologist will go out to inspect facilities. So we were just guessing at how many we would have to process and inspect. It could be lower, it could be higher.'
Greene said the new law puts West Virginia in line with other Appalachian states that allow wildlife rehabilitation.
'We were the only state in Appalachia that didn't have a rehabilitation program for wildlife,' Greene said. 'I think that, as an agency, we will be focused on rule development. We'll be focused on making sure we're still able to effectively control disease management. That would be one of our bigger concerns.'
Specifically, the DNR is concerned about chronic wasting disease, a fatal contagious disease in deer. She said the statute will allow the agency the authority needed to control the disease.
'I don't know what that's going to look like exactly,' she said. 'My biologists — and I'm not a biologist, so I'm not going to speak for them — but they are currently working and looking at what we would need to do, whether that's to control movement of different wildlife from different locations, or education. We'll just have to see where we go with that.'
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