DALLAS -- Rosie has had a rough life.
Her parents abandoned Rosie and her brothers and sisters, making them orphans. They were split up and sent to other families that tried to care for them. After being shuffled from one home to another, Rosie was recently checked into rehab, where she is undergoing treatment.
Rosie is not a juvenile delinquent, a drug addict or even a washed-up pop star. Rosie is a raccoon, taken from a chimney by well-meaning but uninformed humans, who thought she and her siblings could become pets.
Today, Rosie is under the care of licensed wildlife rehabilitator Bonnie Bradshaw, who nurses raccoons back to health. That's a humanitarian pursuit, but she also owns 911 Wildlife, a licensed pest-control service that helps humans deal with any species of wildlife in a safe, humane way.
"As any wildlife rehabilitator will tell you, a vast majority of animals we see are orphaned as a result of human activity," Bradshaw said. "Thanks to Animal Planet, people know all about pandas and tigers and elephants, but they do not know as much about native wildlife. My thing is that I hope that we don't have to wait until an animal is endangered to care about it."
Bradshaw started 911 Wildlife two years ago after working with the DFW Wildlife Coalition. The nonprofit coalition of wildlife specialists operates a year-round hot line for people with wildlife problems to contact an expert for ideas about getting rid of the animal.
"One of the things we found was that people would call the hot line and they would have raccoons in the chimney or squirrels in the attic," Bradshaw said. "We would spend 20 minutes on the phone with them, but then they would say, 'But do you have someone who could come over? Do you have someone to come to my house and help me with this?'"
Bradshaw's company will help clients in two ways. A technician will perform a free inspection, looking for possible entry points, and provide suggestions for the homeowner to solve the problem, such as putting wire mesh on a chimney or plugging a hole in an attic. Or technicians will quote a price to do the work themselves, usually starting at $150.
"Our main mission is to prevent animals from being injured or orphaned, so unlike other pest-control companies, we are willing to come out for free and help a person solve a problem at no charge," Bradshaw said. "If they pay us to do the eviction and exclusion work, we give them a 10-year guarantee."
911 Wildlife does not trap or relocate animals, but instead uses techniques endorsed by the Humane Society of the United States. According to Robert Fitzgerald, a wildlife technician for 911 Wildlife, traditional live-trap techniques employed by most pest-control facilities do not work because when one animal is removed, others move in.
Relocation, Bradshaw says, hurts animals more. When animals are released into the wild, they normally are dropped in an unfamiliar area controlled by another, dominant animal. This can cause a competition for food and other resources that the newly relocated animal cannot win.
"Plus, when folks will trap an animal, they may take it and release it and may not realize that it was a mother raccoon and there are three or four babies that are still somewhere," Fitzgerald said. "The worst call that we get is a call that someone says, 'I trapped a raccoon,' or 'I trapped a skunk, I released it somewhere and now I smell something dead in the attic.' That is what we try to avoid."
Instead, 911 Wildlife uses a three-part system that helps animals get away and stay away. First, a technician will inspect the house, finding possible food sources and entry points for the animal. The animal will be allowed to leave, and then the technician will seal the entry.
"I think that their mission is one that is definitely needed. It is partly education and it is partly service," Texas Master Naturalist Mark Branning said. "I think that those go hand in hand with helping and working with wildlife."
Bradshaw also teaches customers to use humane aversion techniques that range from installing high-tech, motion-sensitive sprinklers to simply shouting and waving at the animal.
"I think that is pretty good, no need in killing wildlife. As long as it can be preserved, it ought to be preserved," said Charles Leake, a landlord in Richardson who called 911 Wildlife after getting complaints from tenants about possible birds or bats in an attic.
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