- [Announcer] Funding for "Georgia Outdoors" has been made possible, in part, by the Imlay Foundation and from viewers like you.

(bright rhythmic music) (bright rhythmic music continues) (bright rhythmic music continues) (bright rhythmic music continues) - What do you do if you find a bird with a broken wing in your yard?

Or maybe it's a baby possum, and you don't see any mom around.

Well, we've found a place where you can take any species.

They'll rescue it, and they'll rehabilitate it, and get it back out in the wild.

At the base of Arabia Mountain near the city of Lithonia, Georgia, you'll find this refuge for orphaned and injured wildlife.

When you enter, it's organized chaos, with cages all over the house and animals in different stages of need.

Marjan Ghadrdan is the director of animal care, and for about 20 years, she has helped any species brought to her.

- [Marjan] Be a good boy, be a good boy.

You're my bad man, you are.

You're so good.

Stay, stay.

Don't leave.

- [Sharon] Marjan, what's the story on this guy?

- [Marjan] So Carrie came to us, he was actually, his mother, he's an orphan, his mother had died, and him and his brother were in a nest in an abandoned shed, and they were accidentally kinda tied to the nest with carpet pieces, and so they couldn't escape the nest, and by the time they got to us, they were severely emaciated, (Carrie squawks) severely dehydrated.

His brother didn't make it, but Carrie did, and he's missing one of his toes, which is really important (Carrie squawks) for balance, and so because of that, he was not releasable, (Carrie squawks) and so he lives here with us, and chooses chaos (Carrie squawks) every day, so he's, it's kind of insane.

- Seems to be quite the ham.

Vultures are very smart and need a lot of stimulation.

Today, I was that stimulation.

He didn't like it when our attention turned to the crows.

- Hi - [Crow] Hi.

- Hi.

- [Crow] Hi.

[Marjan] Be careful of Carrie up there.

- [Crow] Hi.

He might bite your hair.

- Hi.

- [Crow] Hi.

- I'm sorry (laughing), I get such a kick - [Crow] Hi.

out of this.

- Hi.

- [Crows] Hi, Hi.

- Hi.

- [Crow] Hi.

- Oh, hi.

[Marjan] So these are American crows.

They both came to us many years ago, and they were very young, - [Crow] Hi.

- and they both were hit by a car but separately - [Crow] Hi.

from each other.

Cars one of the number one reasons we get animals in here.

- Wow!

- And so Crowbar has basically broken fingers, and so she can't fly well enough to hunt - [Crow] Hi.

or forage, you know, and Velcro is actually missing half of one of his wings So he can't fly at all.

- You're kidding?

- [Sharon] Oh, yeah, I see.

Animals that cannot be released are called ambassadors.

AWARE presents programs to the public and uses these animals to educate people about different species and how to avoid harming them.

- This is Wendy Soohoo, she's a barn owl.

Why are you shaking?

Why are you shaking?

- Soohoo.

Oh, there comes jealousy.

- Uh-huh, oh, wow.

- Uh, uh, uh, uh.

No, sir!

(Sharon laughs) - I just got packed on the heel.

- Uh-huh.

Hey, hey, go, go.

(Sharon laughs) No, don't be bad.

Naughty Carrie!

- Say, "I'm looking at the owl where (indistinct)."

You can't see him down on the floor, but the vulture is such a ham, he kept flying to the floor and nudging me on the back of my shoe because he wasn't getting attention.

- So Wendy was actually in a yard.

A person saved her, because their neighbor was trying to hit her with a shovel, - What?

- because they thought she would eat their cat.

- Oh, yeah.

(Marjan laughs) - She's way too small to eat a cat, right?

It's not something she would do.

So you can see her wing hangs down, - Yes.

- and so she can't fly well enough to hunt.

(Carrie squawks) - [Sharon] And Carrie is back on the floor.

[Marjan] Go, go.

(laughs) Look at you.

- [Sharon] After once again scolding Carrie, Marjan continues her train of thought.

- People, you know, when they're scared or when they love their animals, they'll do crazy things you know, and so she... Luckily, somebody else was there, and they intervened, and they were like, "No, stop,!

She doesn't need cats," you know, (laughs) and they brought her to us, and, you know, her wing couldn't be repaired.

- [Sharon] There is constant movement at the wildlife center, and Carrie is usually in the middle of it.

You'll see him again after Marjan brings down a broad-winged hawk.

So this is a native hawk?

- This is a native hawk.

This is actually Georgia's only migratory hawk.

- Really?

- Yeah.

So they fly down south for the winter, they go down to, like, South America, that kind of area.

And so her name is Bugsy.

She came to us (chuckling) because she was hit by a car when she was very young, and so she has some depth perception issues.

You see her eyes kinda bug out of her face - Yeah, yeah.

- a little bit.

And so she came to us, and she's not really able to land a perch very well, at least back then.

Now she's pretty good, but back then, she had a lot of trouble actually landing, and so we think she got hit by a car, it's very, very common You know, we throw our food and our trash on the side of the road, and that draws in rodents, who these guys like to eat.

- Of course.

- And so she's been with us a pretty long time now.

- Oh, okay.

- Are you preening?

Are you happy?

That means means I'm happy.

Oh, this means that this is a compliment.

Good rubs, that means they're comfortable.

- Oh.

- Yeah.

- Really big span, wings span?

- They have broad wings.

Show your wings.

- Oh, yes, beautiful.

- Yeah, the shape is kind of broader than some of the, like Cooper's, especially.

- Yep, yep, yep.

Yeah, yeah.

- Yes.

Who wants to come home with me?

I'm just telling you.

- All right.

(Sharon laughs) Hey, hey, hey, hey, be good.

Go to bed.

(Sharon laughs) He's gonna be bad 'cause of you guys here.

- Chaos at the rehab center.

- I know.

I say that he wakes up every morning and chooses chaos, (laughs) like every single bird.

- Birds everywhere.

- [Marjan] I'm like, "Carrie, please get it together."

- [Crow] Stop it.

- Yeah, stop it!

You heard them.

Tell him, stop it.

Stop it.

- [Crow] Stop it.

They're little snitches, they narc (laughs) You can tell when he's doing something bad, 'cause you'll hear them, and you'll come running in here, like... - [Sharon] Stop it.

- [Crow] Stop it.

(Sharon laughs) - [Sharon] Talking with the crows.

The crows learned to scold after hearing the staff say that to Carrie so much.

They don't train the animals with food, so sometimes they respond and sometimes they don't.

It's what I love about this place.

They are still wild, even in captivity.

The animals in rehab are kept separate from the ambassadors, and they are not given names.

- So here, we have a baby squirrel, and he's getting his bottle.

You know, baby squirrels often come in to us either caught by a cat or as orphans.

A lot of times, though, we find baby squirrels, and the right answer is to get them back to their mom.

You know, you... Just because we find a baby animal doesn't necessarily mean it needs our help, and some cases, they just got separated from their mom a little bit, and if you put them back out for mom and make sure they stay warm, she'll come get them, and so we always start with that.

We always try to get them back to mom.

If that doesn't work, then they can come in here, and then we'll raise them.

You know, their best bet is to learn from mom, so we want them to go back.

But as he gets older, we'll combine him with other baby squirrels and we'll release them as a family unit.

You know, a lot of times, people find one baby squirrel, and they raise them, and they release them, and those squirrels don't usually make it, because they need the protection of the family unit to survive.

You need to release them in groups of four, five, six.

- [Sharon] So how do you know when to rescue?

- [Marjan] You know, if you find a baby animal and it's lethargic, and it's barely moving, and it's covered in parasites, then, yes, but most of the time, if they're bright and healthy, especially a baby bird, it doesn't need your help.

- [Sharon] We're back and forth among cages all day.

It's a full house, because it isn't warm enough to keep most of the animals in outside enclosures.

- Okay, be cool.

- [Sharon] Look how cute you are.

And where did these come from, Marjan?

- [Marjan] So these guys actually were orphans You know, the lady had been watching them for a while, and mom was coming, and then all of a sudden, mom stopped coming, and usually, we say, "Well, maybe mom's still gonna come back," but they started coming out of the den, they're walking around crying and screaming, like, it's very clear that the mom is not there anymore.

- Oh.

- And one of them actually has a bad leg that we're gonna do an examination on today and see if it's something that can be repaired.

And so we'll raise these guys up, we'll teach them to forage, we'll teach them to hunt, and then they'll be let go.

(gentle rhythmic music) (gentle rhythmic music continues) (gentle rhythmic music continues) (gentle rhythmic music continues) - Oh, I see it.

- I see the one, yeah.

Looks like something caught him, like... - Yeah.

So he has an old fracture to his leg.

- [Sharon] What do you do?

- I don't know, My guess is, you know, it could be a number of things, but it could be a trapping injury.

That happens sometimes, they get stuck in traps.

A lot of times, they'll lose the foot, though.

So he definitely had some kind of fracture, It's healed now, he just came in, so... - So you think he'll be okay to be released, even with that fracture?

- It depends.

Foxes really use these front arms, so for hunting, they really rely on these front arms, so he'll have to be able to pounce.

He's young enough where if he doesn't pounce, we could place him in education, so he has a shot there, but we could try to do... 'Cause I think he's been walking a little bit like this, as we could try to maybe put a little splint there and get him used to doing that.

- See inside your little ears.

(crows chattering) - [Assistant] (chuckles) Little tiny teeth.

- Open up, we don't bite.

- He doesn't wanna open the mouth.

- No.

He's like, "No!"

I gotta see in there.

Okay.

That looks good, that looks good.

- Oh, what an adorable face!

- The rest of him looks good.

It's just that one little leg You wanna turn him around the other way and I'll give him some fluids?

- Yeah.

- I'm gonna come back to that side over there, but just get what I need - Yeah, were they dehydrated when they came in?

- Yeah, a little bit dehydrated, 'cause mom had been gone for a couple of days, so.

- Oh, so you're doing it kinda like an IV?

- Yeah, so this is subcutaneous, but it is the same stuff you receive when you get an IV.

It's difficult to convince wildlife to keep in a catheter the way that we will (chuckles) as humans, or even your dogs and cats might, so because of that, we tend to do the fluids subcutaneously.

If he was really down, or having surgery, or not feeling good, we would place a catheter, but... (gentle rhythmic music) And you'll see he's going to get like a little lump on his back, a lot like- - And that's just the fluid build-up?

- It's just the fluids.

He's like a little Quasimodo.

- So how long before you think you can release the fox?

- Oh, they'll be here, like, at least three months 'cause they gotta grow up.

They're too little to survive on their own.

- [Sharon] There are so many cases all crammed in this small refuge.

AWARE is a nonprofit trying to raise enough money for a new facility with more room and the ability to service more animals.

- So this is a chipmunk that came to us as a juvenile, and he was caught by a cat, and so you can see he has a pretty gnarly wound on his nose and face.

- Yeah.

- It was actually much bigger and almost to the skull, so it was very, very big - Wow!

and bad, at the time.

It's gotten a lot better.

He's actually up for release in a few weeks.

The wound's almost healed, and then once it's healed all the way, we'll get him outside, let him get acclimated to the environment, get him to have kind of a more natural enclosure, and then we'll release him back to the wild.

- Is that knock, knock, knock sound a woodpecker?

- It is (laughs).

We have a red-feathered woodpecker in there, and he's modifying his habitat, apparently (laughs).

(woodpecker knocking) - That's hilarious, - Yeah (chuckles).

Yeah, and so you can see the chipmunk is putting a lot of food into his... Well, now he's grooming, but he was putting a bunch of food into his cheek pouches, and they'll get these huge cheeks because they stuff all this food in there, and so a lot of times, when we put the food in there, they'll stuff all the sunflower seeds in there, and so they save it for later.

(both laugh) - Next up, a woodpecker.

They try to keep him covered a bit since he is so skittish.

A red-headed woodpecker up close!

- Yeah.

- [Sharon] So he can't fly?

- He cannot fly yet, but he's actually healing pretty nicely, so we are hoping that he will actually be able to fly.

He came in with a broken wing, and it had a little bit of bone exposure, so there was a big wound involved with it, so we... You can kind of see some of the feathers are missing there.

Yeah, he's a little upset.

- They will have to do some flight testing when the feathers grow back Mad woodpecker.

- Mad!

He's pecking me.

He's got that nice beak, he can chisel away.

- So what are you giving him?

- So I'm giving him a nutritional supplement to help him with his diet.

You know, he gets a more natural diet, more varied diet, in the wild, and so here, we give him a little bit of a supplement to make sure that he's getting all the vitamins, and minerals, and amino acids that he may need.

- [Sharon] But eventually, you think he'll be able to fly?

- I hope so, yeah.

There you go.

Good job, good job.

Okay.

- Oh, it's so cool - Okay, he's quite - to be this close - the beautiful bird.

- to a red-feathered woodpecker.

They're beautiful!

- Yeah.

He's so pretty, and he's upset.

You go back in there.

All right.

- [Sharon] This facility is bustling all the time.

We stop what we're doing because it's feeding time.

- So this is Jordan Ellison and Nicole Kolesar, and they are some of our wildlife care supervisors here at AWARE, and they're working on our 2:00 p.m. baby feeding.

So Jordan has a baby squirrel, and Nicole is tubing a baby rabbit.

So you can see that different animals have different requirements.

Baby squirrels, they're very good at suckling, and so they can suckle, and they can, you know, take a bottle, basically.

Just Jordan's using a syringe so that she can control the flow.

It's actually pretty hard to feed babies, and if you don't control the flow of what you're giving them, it's easy to aspirate them.

- Wow.

- But the- - So where did the bunny come from?

- He was caught by a cat, - Oh.

- so you see it's a theme around here (laughs), and so Nicole is tube-feeding him, so she's using, it's called gavaging, and baby bunnies aren't great at suckling, they're not big on it.

They'll do it, but it will take 25 minutes to feed him, so she is putting a tube into his belly, - Oh.

- yeah, and pumping the formula straight in.

And Nicole, you wanna see if maybe he'll sit on the table for you for a second while you look at him?

Don't let him run off the table, okay?

- How cute!

- So these guys are both gonna be released.

The baby squirrel will have to be combined with other squirrels, and we'll make a family unit, and the baby rabbit will actually be able to be released on his own, but he's still just a little young, you know.

He's getting there, though.

Another week or so, he's big enough for release, you know.

- Really?

At this point, you're probably wondering if you can visit AWARE.

Executive director, Scott Lange, says the answer is yes.

- So we're right next to Arabia Mountain.

People can come for a hike on the mountain and then come do our free tour, one o'clock every Saturday and Sunday, and come see some of our ambassador animals.

Have a staff of about nine animal care folks and one office person, that's me.

We definitely take volunteers.

We have about 80 weekly volunteers who come for a, typically, a four-hour shift to feed, and medicate, and clean patients.

There's a lot of cleaning when you're taking care of wildlife, so we definitely love volunteers.

- As the temperatures warm, there will be 200 to 250 animals here.

When they get the new facility, they can handle even more, in part because it just seems like Marjan can heal about anything.

- Yeah.

- This was so impressive to me.

- Yeah.

You guys basically made the shell.

- Yes, so Mary Shelley Frankenstein was a victim of a lawnmower accident, and so that's why we always tell people, when you go out to mow your lawn, take a stick and walk around, and look for turtles, look for baby bunnies, you know, a lot of times, their nests are there.

And so she had a depression fracture here, and so what we did was we took fiberglass and marine boat epoxy, and we rebuilt the shell, and then we painted it so her friends wouldn't make fun of her.

- Aw.

- I know, 'cause it blends in so well.

(Marjan laughs) - Yeah, and so it's actually not why she's not releasable.

You know, we fix lots of turtles up and we send them out.

This patch usually will last five to 10 years, and then it'll kinda come off.

although hers has been on a little bit longer, we did a great job, but she's also missing this little foot, - Oh, yeah.

- See, she has no foot there.

- So the lawnmower got the foot too?

- I don't think so, I think that happened before.

She came in with it healed.

It doesn't actually keep her from being releasable, either.

You know, she can't build a nest really good, which is... We want them to get out there and breed, - Right, right.

- but she can survive.

The problem is she has weird little arms.

Her arms are kinda turned out, and she has trouble digging, which would mean she would have trouble brumating through the winter, - Got you.

- she wouldn't survive a winter.

She kinda digs a little hole and sticks her head in it, like a little cartoon ostrich, and she's like, "I'm good," and I'm like, "You're not good."

- No, you're not good.

(Marjan laughs) So she lives here with us.

- [Sharon] This is her best friend, Jeffrey the rat snake.

They like each other so much that the eastern box turtle will move into a new enclosure with the snake.

Hi, Jeffrey.

- So Jeffrey, - You're so pretty.

he has a really cool story, actually.

He was what we used to call our wild ambassador, so he lived outside, we just saw him all the time.

You know, he would just be in this enclosure or that enclosure, and, you know, he loved to hang out in our screech owls' enclosure, and so we would catch him and take him out of the enclosure and just put him right over there, like not far, or anything, and he was always around.

And one day, somebody rang our doorbell, and they were holding a limp snake, and they were like, "This snake got attacked by a dog in the parking lot," and we recognized immediately, you know, - We were like, "Oh, my god, - It was Jeffrey.

- Jeffrey!"

you know (laughs).

and so he came here.

- He had a- - I want them to see the belly.

- Yeah.

- This is why snakes are so beautiful.

- Yeah.

- Look at this.

- It's really cool, so he's light on the bottom, so when he's in a tree, if you look up, you can't see him, but he's dark on the top, so if he's on the ground, and you look down, you can't see him, - You wanna smell me?

- so it's actually a really cool kinda form of camouflage.

- And if you have rats, this is the reason you want these snakes to survive?

- Yes, yes.

People call all the time, and they're like, "There's a big black snake on my porch," and I'm like, "Good for you, because there's not rats in your house," you know.

But, yeah, so he had - Look at him, pretty, pretty (indistinct) some permanent brain damage.

I tried to release him a few times, and he would come and crawl into my lap, like, he would just - Aw.

- come find me (laughs), and so (laughs) I figured that wouldn't go over well in the wild.

- So he lives at AWARE now, and will soon move into a nice new enclosure with Shelley the turtle.

You will almost always find a possum or two, or three.

This one was hit by a car.

In fact, about 60% of the animals brought in were car hits, or orphaned when the parent gets hit.

They didn't know she was pregnant.

She has nine babies, and will stay for a bit longer to raise them.

Outside, we found an enclosure full of raccoons, all of them after our camera gear.

- What's he wanna do?

- Yeah.

Climb up on them?

- He's, raccoons are very, very curious animals, so he probably wants to check out his pants, he probably wants to steal, they're burglars, they will steal your phone, they'll steal your glasses, whatever you got.

They're little thieves.

The one that is coming up to the camera a lot, he was very, very scared of other raccoons.

You know, he had been with people for a little while, and that can be very dangerous for them.

A lot of times, they're not, they can't be released after that.

- [Sharon] Yeah.

- [Marjan] But he was young enough where once we convinced him that other raccoons weren't scary, he was able to be a family with them.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (engine rumbling) - [Sharon] AWARE runs on people care.

People have to care enough to bring animals in.

Volunteers are critical to the operation AWARE doesn't get any government funding, so without people making donations, this place would not exist.

You are watching the reason so many are committed to this operation.

Raccoons are loaded into a golf cart, ready to be released.

(engine rumbling) (engine roaring) - This is Sally.

(engine rumbling) - [Sharon] When all the crates are deep in the woods, the doors are opened and they waddle out one by one.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) (bright music continues) - You know, just getting to see them take those first steps back in the wild, that's what it's all about.

Every animal that we get, we're trying to give them a second chance at life in the wild, and get them back to the wild, so, yeah, getting see that happen is why we're here.

- [Sharon] The raccoons are some of many, many animals saved by AWARE.

They were released as a family unit, and already, one is up in a tree.

It appears (chuckles) that the first taste of freedom is suiting them quite well.

There's a great website they have, it's called AWARE Wildlife, just type it in your browser.

It has tons of information, and there are also forms you can fill out, and they will send you to other rehabbers that might be closer to your location.

I'm Sharon Collins.

We'll see you next time.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (bright music continues)