Instead of Going to a Roadside Zoo, Go to the FL Rehabber Who Rescues Their Rejects

Tiger brothers rescued by Wildlife Rehab or Hernando

If you're looking for an animal attraction in central Florida that doesn't make you feel icky about how they treat the animals, check out Wildlife Rehab of Hernando. Jimmy Jablon started out taking in local native wildlife--raccoons, alligators, fox--but demand for exotic animals turned out of homes and those creepy roadside attractions.

When you go to the shelter, less than an hour north of Tampa, you'll get much closer to animals than you would in a zoo and your donation for a tour ($17.50 for adults, $8.50 for kids) will go to help maintain these animals and save others. "We let all the people that come here get close to the animals," he says. "You stand a foot from the tigers and the monkeys are on a fence next to you."

Right now Jablon could use the donations, after spending $8,000 for tests and surgery for a 160 pound lion cub that's now recuperating in his house to ward off infection. Jablon has seen so many of what he calls "photo cubs"--big cats misused to pose for cute pictures when they're young--that he recognized the syndrome. The cat had been underfed and improperly fed and her skull wasn't growing to keep up with her brain. Jablon drained more of his savings from working in the insurance business to pay the vet bills, which he had been hoping to get a break on for rescuing the animal.

Recently he did get a big break thanks to Waste Management and Wal-Mart. Rather than take the retailer's unsold meat to the landfill, Waste Management makes it available to Jablon, who otherwise would have to buy 1,000 pounds of meat a week to keep his carnivores fed. "There's nothing wrong with the meat. Sometimes it's still frozen," he says. Regulations just require removing it after so many days. He's got no such help with produce: he spends about $23,000 a year on fruits and vegetables.

All of his enclosures are about twice the size they need to be, but he wants to give the animals a decent life. He only takes in creatures that he has--or can make--room for. "If I don't I'm just putting them in the same position," he says. He just built a facility for two cats rescued from Vanishing Wildlife, which rented animals out for parties, until the state shut them down.

Native animals only stay if they can't make it in the wild and seem content there. "Don't take an animal that's always been wild and try to keep them behind bars," he warns. He'd rather euthanize the animal than keep it in misery. "If we've got an animal can't be released and it's spending 12 hours a day pacing in his cage, he's just being tormented." 

He keeps an albino raccoon named Stuart Little that wouldn't make it in the wild because predators and other raccoons would pick him out immediately. Stuart has the company of four raccoons with vision, neurological or motor problems. Jablon doesn't ever keep a solitary animal of a social species. He even bought a lemur to keep two rescues company. And he's hoping someone needs a home for a wallaby soon.

The need for an exotic sanctuary just snuck up on him. "Like everybody else, I thought there was somebody else taking care of it," he says. "There's a much bigger need than people are aware of."

He also knows that long-term he can do the most good with education. As a father of a 13-year-old girl who plays a big part in the shelter, he's especially interested in teaching kids about the right way to treat animals. "We try to grab the kids the most," he says. "They put a name or a face to an animals and later they'll say 'Oh, look out, that's a gopher tortoise, don't hit it!'"

Visit Wildlife Rehab of Hernando

See more Wildlife in Florida

Visit Other Big Cat Sanctuaries Around the World

Secrets of the Hallett in Central Park

The Hallett Nature Sanctuary on Central Park South been in the news this month as the daytime napping place of at least one coyote/coywolf. This four-acre island of nature is normally almost invisible to park goers, even though it's in the most popular corner of Central Park.

When the park was created this whole area was a big, smelly swamp known to carry malaria. The New York Times describes how the wealthy residents of 5th Avenue finally fixed the problem of stagnant water in their cellars. Frederick Law Olmstead drained the swamp and created the Pond, with a promintory left natural.

The pond was popular for “swan velocipede boats.” An 1887 Times story says the boats "got no rest from morning to night," as a quarter million people visited the park on the first day of spring, watched a black swan protect her nest on a rock in the Pond and observed only two prairie dogs emerge, "the most certain sign of warm weather." In the winter the crowds headed to the pond for ice skating. Trolleys used to wear a signal red ball if it was currently frozen enough to skate. The current Wollman Rink is built over a filled in section of the pond.

The preserve area has been off limits to regular New Yorkers since 1934, when it was named the Bird Sanctuary. In 1952 the Times reported:  "59TH ST. PARK LAKE TO BE RID OF FILTH; Complaints of Offensive Debris Bring Admission of 'Laxity."

Where to See Wildlife in New York City

Supposedly a group of teen docents from the Central Parks Conservancy gives small, regular tours. Or at least that's what NYC24 says. I did find pictures of a 2009 outing for homeschooled. I didn't see it on the conservancy's current list of tours or hear back from them yet.




Nature photographer David Liittschwager recently did a neat study of wildlife in the Hallett and several other places for National Geographic. He puts out a one square foot cube, then documents all the creatures in it. You wouldn't believe the variety of bugs that live in Manhattan leaf litter. He says in a video he knew the raccoons (more often seen in the North Woods) were in his foot because they actually moved the cube.

Central Park Raccoons to Get Rabies Shots

Manhattan raccoons, faced with an epidemic of rabies, are going to get trapped, vaccinated and tagged (so they don't have to go through the ordeal a second time.) There was a mild panic this winter in the city as rabies started showing up in the raccoons of Central Park and upper Manhattan.

People may have panicked more if they realized how many raccoons really live in this densely packed city. The New York City Health Department has found 49 rabid raccoons in Manhattan, mostly in the top 13 blocks of Central Park. (Oddly, the state isn't keeping  up.) As a wildlife rehabber I get calls from people who just spot raccoons in the city. The raccoons are fine, but people assume something is terribly wrong if a raccoon is living here.

That's a relief to animal lovers who feared they'd just be rounded up and euthanized--an animal control strategy that usually doesn't work because new animals just move into the undefended territory.

If you go on an owl walk at dusk in summer in the North Woods of Central Park, you'll be amazed at how many raccoons you'll see. They'll be sleepily climbing out of tree cavities and holes between boulders to start their day.






American pets don't get rabies much anymore because they get vaccines. The northeast has a huge population of  rabid raccoons thanks to hunters who imported them from dealers, John Hadidian, head of the Humane Society of the United State's Urban Wildlife program. The American Journal of Public Health  traced the outbreak to hunters who in the late 70s illegally imported raccoons from Florida animal dealers to shoot. At the time the southeast accounted for 98% of raccoon rabies diagnoses. One quarter of shipments later studied had rabid animals.

Where to See Wild Animals Around New York City