♪♪ -Welcome to Windows to the Wild, I’m Willem Lange.

As natural habitat for wildlife shrinks due to development, sightings of animals in urban neighborhoods increase.

You'll meet a couple of folks who are helping to save those displaced animals.

We also take you to a shelter in New Hampshire, where orphaned and injured black bear cubs are cared for and then sent home.

First, what's happening to New Hampshire's moose?

According to folks who spend time in the field studying them, their population is in steep decline.

You're about to meet some of the people who are working hard to reverse that trend.

[natural ambiance] ♪♪ With more than 4.7 million acres of forest, New Hampshire is home to an abundant array of wildlife.

[birds singing] Few are more beloved or more mysterious than the moose.

♪♪ -Some people like cats or dogs.

[chuckling] Moose are probably my favorite subject.

Something about them, they’re, ♪♪ big and awkward.

You know?

They can figure you out.

-They grab the attention of many people and, and what it is, is it their size?

Is it kind of their somewhat, you know abnormal appearance?

or is it that they maybe represent something, ♪♪ a wild landscape?

People enjoy seeing moose.

They enjoy hunting and eating moose.

And then there's other people that just, they want to know that they're out there and that they are part of the, functioning ecosystem.

♪♪ ♪♪ [rustling] -For decades, Roger Irwin has photographed moose and other wildlife throughout New Hampshire.

-I was dairy farming and one year I was able to afford a camera with a 300 millimeter lens.

Get out early in the morning and I’d get up to milk cows at 3:00 and get the chores done, get the milking done, and then be able to be out in the fall so that I could start hiking a little after daybreak and that was probably 25, 30, 30 years ago, maybe.

There were a lot of moose then, it was much easier than it is now.

-When I was younger, we used to go out when I was in my teens, being up here from the North Country.

We'd go out looking for moose in the evening friends that, you know, me and some friends and, we used to see quite a bit of them, and I just thought there'd be a fun, safer way of getting people out there to see them.

I was also on the, EMS for years prior, a few years prior to starting the business in 99 and, unfortunately I seen a few motor vehicle accidents with moose and people so I figured, you know, if we can get them, on a bus a little safer and, get out there and educate them on the, you know, on the moose and you know how to view them safely.

-Moose are my favorite, I love to get out and look for them and try to call them in.

[horn mimicking moose call] I used to be able to call in up to 12 moose in a day.

[camera flicks] Nowadays, I'm lucky if I can get one to come in in a week.

[cars whooshing] -New Hampshire's moose population has gone through rapid increase and decrease over the last 50 years, from about 2000 to current population has been stable and declining, and it's declined about 50% since 2000.

It was about 7500 moose statewide in 2000, and now it's about 3000.

-The numbers are getting less and less through the ticks we're having, you know, just warmer winters.

They're devastating the moose population.

-The major threats towards moose, the first one is loss of quality and quantity of habitat.

Winter tick parasitism and brain worm parasitism.

Most whitetail deer have brain worm.

It's a worm that sits along the outer edge of their brain in the meninges.

When moose become infected, they develop neurological impairment and die.

♪♪ And so when there are more deer, and moose and deer habitat overlap, brain worm in moose increases and you can see a long term decline in the moose population.

-Shorter winters brought on by climate change mean more challenges for moose.

-Traditionally in New Hampshire, white-tailed deer were limited by severe winter conditions are one of the limiting factors for them.

With climate change, those conditions are now occurring less frequently and less likely to occur in the future, and winter tick abundance on the landscape is due to your moose density, how many moose are there per unit area, and then it's also associated with the length of winter conditions.

The longer it takes for lasting snow cover to arrive, that gives winter ticks more time to search for a host.

-Despite declining numbers, moose remain a cultural icon of the state.

♪♪ -Viewing and hunting provides economic revenue for rural local economies, and there's much moose related memorabilia for tourists [camera flicks] A bull moose is on the state conservation license plates.

♪♪ -I know that Fish and Game has cut down the hunt tremendously.

They think that it’s at a perfect number right now, so as long as we have some colder, snowier winters, in the future, I think that'll help with the ticks and, you know, keep our, population right about where we are now hopefully.

-It's often counterintuitive to people to think that it could be okay to hunt a declining species, actually, to help them, but it is that density relationship so regulated hunting of moose can be used to try to keep the population lower to moderate moose density, which results in lower tick abundance, and healthier moose that are therefore more productive.

♪♪ -They say there’s half as many moose.

I think it's more like a quarter, or even less ♪♪ unless they're all hiding now.

But the antlers aren't out there like they used to be, and the moose, aren’t there like they used to be.

Like I said, I, I've called in a dozen in one day.

So that's a big difference between where I can call in now.

-Now we still see, you know, we'll average it all depends, you know, 4 or 5 a night, 6 a night.

But back in the, in the days, we could average 8, 10 a night throughout the summer.

-So people remember 20 years ago when there were quite a lot of moose, and that number of moose on the landscape it’s just not normal for what you see across moose range.

The moose decline in New Hampshire is partly due to habitat, partly due to climate change of parasitism, and it's also partly due to we're just getting back to figuring out like what is kind of more normal for New Hampshire's moose population.

-They're just intriguing.

They're gentle giants.

They're, they're just beautiful to view and Eric and I, my tour guide, to this day, we still get very excited when we see the moose out there.

along with everyone on the bus also.

But they're just, they're a majestic animal.

♪♪ -I've seen it, you probably have too.

Deer, fox and other wildlife roaming around the neighborhood or even in your backyard.

Sometimes they simply pass on through.

Other times they may need help to get back where they belong.

As you're about to see, not every situation is the same.

[bird chirping] -The wild world calls us to slow down, reminding us that we are kin and we are capable of living in more harmony than we are right now.

And there's so many ways we can do that.

[birds singing] ♪♪ [birds singing] ♪♪ Yeah, Dan Gardoqui, and I'm the education outreach director here at the Center for Wildlife in York, Maine.

♪♪ The center is amazing.

It's just almost entering its 40th year, and we're just helping foster connections and understanding between people and what I like to call the more than human world but, you know, wildlife, landscapes and the, this planet we all share.

We spend a lot of time caring for, quote unquote, rescuing orphaned, injured animals, applying whatever skills our amazing clinic team has to help them recover or sometimes, you know, humanely euthanize, provide hospice care at times for a lot of animals, too, but mostly just finding ways to, help them when they need help and also help the humans who bring them in to understand more about their world and what it means to be sharing space with these animals and what are things we can do.

♪♪ In the almost 40 years it's over 85,000 animals, I have over 85,000.

The majority of what we work with here are birds.

We are a bird specialty place, but we also work with reptiles.

Some amphibians, so like turtles, salamanders, believe it or not, and then we deal with just about five mammals squirrels, possums, chipmunks, porcupines and bats.

♪♪ The trends are more and more animals are being brought in, and that's across the board.

Doesn't really matter on the kind of class or type of animal we see more of everything.

There's just a lot more of this kind of interface of humans and wildlife and, in those interfaces, there's often conflict, there's stress, disease, injury.

There's also misunderstanding, and sometimes well-intentioned people thinking animals need help when actually those wild animals are probably just fine on their own and best left alone.

So one of the approaches we try and use here is is known as one health, and one health is basically just helping people understand that, yeah, we share this place.

People, animals, trees, plants, habitats, wetlands, everything, right?

It's just one Earth, it’s a closed system, and so if we think about the wellness of your local snapping turtle or the well-being of your local raccoons is actually directly tied to you whether you can see it or not, it might be a few steps apart, but the water quality, the air quality, the decisions around roads and traffic, pesticide use, you name it, all that stuff is eventually finds its way back to us.

♪♪ Human beings as a massively impactful species, I think we have an obligation.

We have an opportunity for sure and I would say we have an obligation to think how can we act as stewards and caretakers as well as sometimes, you know, not so keen, at destroyers of things.

So like, we-- no one’s perfect we're all growing and learning, but there's a lot we know we can do and that we can do it really well, and that's what we're doing here.

We have this opportunity to engage in the lives of our wild neighbors, and once we just wake up to this, like, our lives get better.

[birds chirping] -We hop across the border to Windham, New Hampshire.

Frannie Greenberg provides rehabilitation services for injured or orphaned mammals at the Millstone Wildlife Center.

It happens to be right in her backyard.

Frannie is licensed by New Hampshire Fish and Game as a Rehabilitator.

♪♪ -The plan for me was to have a few animals each year.

We set out, I got licensed, and the first call came.

It was a muskrat, after that came the squirrels and the bunnies.

Six raccoons did come that year, but they came much later with many other animals.

[rustling] ♪♪ This past year we took in almost 1400 animals.

♪♪ -This idea of one health connections we are one of many.

It takes this whole village, this network of different skilled, licensed, you know, rehabilitators, and clinicians to best care for a lot of these different species depending on the situation, depending on the time of year, depending on resources.

it definitely takes a lot of help from a lot of people.

-Part of our mission is to teach people how to coexist.

We feel very strongly it's important to answer the phone and if people have questions, we encourage them to call, whether it be, we have bunnies in our backyard, do we leave them?

Do we move them?

Whatever the animal might be, we have a raccoon in our attic.

We encourage those questions.

We want people to know there, there are safe ways to have animals move on.

Sometimes it means lights or sounds or smells, and that animal will move without them being handled or relocated.

Because especially this time of year when an animal is taken elsewhere, you very often find a few days later there were babies, and now we've made orphans, and we're here for those people, but we don't want them to be in that situation.

We hope people will call.

We hope people will realize that the new raccoon that you see in your backyard in the middle of the day may not be rabid, it may have babies, so there are fun little facts like that if you see an opossum in your yard, maybe it's helping to clean up the roadkill that's in front of the house.

So many of the animals that we don't know about, we haven't learned to appreciate, so we hope to do that with our educational components.

Can I have you hold one minute?

It looks like there is a, he's wearing the phone.

[indaudible] -We do as long as you're sure that they've been monitoring and it's done humanely, we can take them in.

-Yeah, they sounded like they, they’ve got their stuff together so-- -Okay.

-We got three more babies coming.

-All right, we'll make space.

Okay.

♪♪ -If you believe you have an animal that needs help and this is important, just slow down.

Not everyone needs to be rescued.

Slow down.

♪♪ That's step number one.

[Dan chuckles] Number two is just make some observations like watch the animal.

Right?

And then, you know, reach out to a licensed rehabilitator near you or go to their website, they often have them.

What do you do if you find a blank?

And there are really helpful steps to tell you what to do.

-Caring people that find them and want to help instantly are worried about food and water.

We ask that people don't offer food or water, better just to keep them warm.

But even before that, if you find an animal in the road in your yard, wear gloves.

It doesn't matter if you think it's just a little, little bunny whatever it is, wear gloves because it will protect you, but it also may save the animal's life.

♪♪ You need to bring it to a rehabilitator where they've been trained, where they have the right medication, the right food, and they can give them proper care.

[groundhogs squeaking] -Don't be afraid to not know as well.

Don't be afraid to say, I want to help but I don't know what to do.

That's great!

Thank you for wanting to help.

Thank you for pausing and breaking the cycle and saying sometimes being helpful is just asking and learning there's nothing you can do, right?

And sometimes, sadly, a lot of things are close to death already and they might not make it.

But even just giving them your attention and empathy is a little bit of, a little bit of a gesture and a gift as well I’d say.

So yeah, sometimes that's all we can do.

♪♪ -Education plays a huge role in being able to live with all the animals in our environment.

-It is really easy to just think about our species.

We live in a world where our attention is, you know, commodified it's the most valuable thing in many ways.

To pause, to give our attention to something more than human, the rest of this planet, ♪♪ it's, it, that that's a big win in itself, but it's also super enriching for people.

So this is the side that like, yes, there's programs and yes, you learn about snakes and turtles and you get to see cool birds and it feels good and all that but you also learn I belong here, I live on this planet, I'm part of this planet, therefore, I might want to think about the impacts of my decisions on this planet.

But we can't do that unless we slow down, ♪♪ and we’re open to learning and listening and caring, and that's not easy.

But when you start with young kids, I find it actually is pretty easy.

They're still there, and many adults are too actually, they're just looking for a reason.

And so I would say the wild world calls us to slow down.

The wild world is reminding us that we are kin, and we are capable of living in more harmony than we are right now, and there’s so many ways we can do that.

And I think what's happening here at the Center for Wildlife and many other places is people are remembering that.

People are remembering and they're being empowered to make change in their life and in their communities, whether it's a little natural community, their human community, but it's all connected anyway, so.

[birds chirping] -Black bears are an important part of New Hampshire's history, culture and ecosystem.

When cubs are orphaned or injured, there's a need to care for them and release them back to their homes.

That's exactly what's been going on in Lyme, New Hampshire for the last three decades.

♪♪ -You know, I've worked with all kinds of animals, from beavers to woodchucks to birds, the dogs and the bear.

There's something above all those.

You know, it's really an incredible animal.

-For 30 years, Ben Kilham has dedicated his life to rehabilitating orphaned black bear cubs from across New England at the Kilham Bear Center in Lyme, New Hampshire.

♪♪ -I started working with bears in, 93, with my first set of cubs.

Followed with a set of three cubs, which one of them was a bear named Squirty.

Been in my books and films and she's now 29 years old.

-She’s still with us?

-Still is, still living in the wild.

Last winter she denned up on Smarts Mountain.

-She got a collar on her or?

-She had a, I can put a collar on her without sedating her, but she doesn't always keep it on her neck is as big as her head.

[both chuckle] Nothing really ensuring that, that collar is going to stay on.

-Yeah.

How do you rehabilitate a bear?

-Well these are cubs who are, they're orphaned from, you know, den disruptions, their mom being shot at a chicken coop but-- -Yeah.

-And so it's just a matter of getting them up to 18 months old, the time they’d normally leave their mother and, we have eleven acre forest with enclosure attached to that first building we were in.

-So they can wander in that eleven acres?

That’s nice.

-It's, it's fenced, got seven strands of electric fence with a deer fence.

Keeps them in.

-Well eventually they they do have to go though?

-They go and they're all ready to go because there's ontogeny or development over time.

And when they're 18 months old, they're looking to the horizon.

So they want to travel and they're ready to be bears and that's when we pick our release time.

It's time they leave their mothers naturally.

-You just turn them loose right here?

-No, Fish and Game brings the bears to us and Fish and Game takes them away.

And we get bears from Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire.

But you know, the really neat thing is that if this works, the bears go back to the wild and they're successful and, they're not conflict bears.

any more than the wild bears are conflict bears.

-Conflict, I'd like to get the bear that tipped over my, composter.

[Willem chuckles] -Well, all the problems, bear problems are caused by, attractants put out by humans.

It's all about smell.

If you control the smell, you control the bear.

[Willem chuckles] -Well, if you're a, if you're a hiker or an outdoors type person, you're going to get involved with bears sooner or later, one way or another, a bear, at least and, -If you, you’re hiking and camping obviously keep your food up to where the bears can't get it or don't, if you really don't want to see bears, don't camp where other people have camped.

-Yeah, good thought, yeah.

-But, as far as encountering a bear on a trail, it's not a big deal.

Bears aren't interested in people.

They're, they're going to go the other way.

And if you're-- get involved with a mom and a cub and you're worried about it she might false charge you or bluff charge or she swats the ground and lets out a big blast of air.

Just hold your position and talk softly to her she thinks, she's afraid of you.

She thinks you're going to attack her-- -That’s right.

-And if you talk softly like you would a child or a dog, she can read all that.

Bears are very, they can pick up on all of our, sub verbal communication.

Unlike humans, who we think a bear bluff charge is going to eat us, so, [Willem chuckles] So it's important if you are hiking to learn about, bear behavior and, and learn about what to expect from em.

♪♪ -Now who supports this operation?

-We're a nonprofit of 501(c)(3) which is an awful lot of work.

Debbie, my wife puts hours and hours and hours.

You got to write Thank you’s and all that kind of stuff.

♪♪ -This is the working side of the buildings.

♪♪ -Uh huh.

♪♪ -And then this is where all the cubs are at the moment.

That cub’s from, sort of near you is from Washington, the mountains?

-Oh yeah.

-Yep.

-Right down the road.

-And then the cub he's playing with actually was another he was found by the side of the road and he was covered in porcupine quills and was relatively near death.

-Oh dear.

♪♪ -Must have had a relatively interesting, life because his, his ears are also clipped, which means they were probably frostbit.

Bears are just like humans so you’ll have introverts who might take a little longer to, warm up to other bears and then you have extreme extroverts who will just run into a group of strange bears and immediately be friends.

♪♪ But they all, they all love to play.

They're all fun loving and, ♪♪ like to, wreak havoc if they can.

♪♪ ♪♪ [camera rattles] -You, you feel that what you're doing is pretty important, right?

-Yeah you know, the people of New Hampshire demand this kind of work gets done.

In the, in the past and in many states, the cubs are driven further into the woods and, and left there to die and that used to happen here and, and I lectured all over the state and people would come up and tell me about finding dead cubs in the woods and that's not good for anybody.

It's not good for the Fish and Game Department, it’s not good for the bears.

And, so it's really something people really want done.

They want, cubs to be rescued.

It's important.

You know, I feel good about working with these animals.

Ethan will tell you the same thing.

They're, they're an amazing, amazingly intelligent animal that you can communicate with.

♪♪ C’mon!

[natural ambiance] [unintelligible] [birds singing] -If it was just the, the farm labor, I, no, you wouldn’t last very long.

It's a, testament to, how, wonderful a creature, a black bear is.

They're always a good metaphor of what we, we could be.

♪♪ They're, not aggressive, they're, they have, ♪♪ good manners, are generally pretty kind.

Like to have fun and live in the present so, just to be around an animal like that is certainly a privilege and honor.

-It is.

♪♪ Well we’ve come to that place in the show that I-- I’ve always liked least, when we have to say goodbye.

So I shall.

Bye, bye.

I'm Willem Lange, and I hope to see you again on Windows to the Wild.

♪♪ Support for the production of Windows to the Wild is provided by the Alice J. Reen Charitable Trust, the John D. McGonagle Foundation, the Bailey Charitable Foundation, Road Scholar, and viewers like you.

Thank you!

-Make a gift to the wild and support the Willem Lange Endowment Fund, established by a friend of New Hampshire PBS.

to learn how you can keep environmental, nature and outdoor programing possible for years to come, call our development team at (603) 868-4467.

Thank you.

♪♪ [camera rattles] ♪♪ [chime]