MURRIETA: Wildlife rehabilitationist strengthens baby animals

Raccoons, screech owls look to her for feeding

By NELSY RODRIGUEZ - Staff Writer | Sunday, July 20, 2008 6:53 PM PDT ∞

MURRIETA ---- The federal government sees them as pests, and Diana Hofman doesn't disagree that they can be maddening.

But as baby raccoons crawled over her shoulders, the squishy pads of their feet feeling her necklace while their sharp, curved nails pinched around the dangling pendant, Hofman said this species is one of her favorites ---- mostly, she said, because there is only a small window in which she can hold them the way she does now.
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In six months, she guaranteed, she won't even be able to approach them without being sprayed with hisses warning of violence.

"They never disappoint," the Murrieta woman said of the animals, which have since grown much bigger. "It's in cute little raccoon clothing with a Tasmanian devil inside."

This is an ideal animal for Hofman, a federally certified wildlife rehabilitationist of 30 years. The raccoon allows her to wean it until it is strong enough to live on its own, then it wants nothing to do with her.

"You can raise a lion, but pretty soon it's going to become a lion," she said as the beady-eyed nocturnal creatures stretched out their paws to touch everything within reach.

The 8-week-old sister raccoons cooed at each other as they slipped under the table in Hofman's home at the base of the Santa Rosa Plateau in Murrieta, out of which she operates the nonprofit Wind Canyon Rehabilitation Center.

Hofman, 60, opened the wildlife center in her home to serve the wildlife of the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve. She's cared for foxes, wildcats, snakes and all types of birds. She receives some donations to help offset her expenses, but the remaining costs to care for the critters come out of her wallet.

Once the raccoons are older, each will go its own way, said Hofman, who by day works at the California Oaks Veterinary Clinic as a veterinary technician. If they encounter each other in the wild, they'll socialize. But for the most part, an adult raccoon is independent.

This pair came to her from the attic of a nearby home, she said. Another few infant raccoons also have landed in her care, as well as birds including hawks and owls, coyotes, foxes, snakes, and even little wildcats.

Wildlife rehabilitationists primarily enforce federal wildlife laws, protect endangered species and conserve and restore wildlife habitats, said Stephanie Weagley, an information and education specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They also work to conserve the habitats of migratory birds and preserve their existence, which Hofman is doing with a few species.

When people call saying they've found a seemingly lost animal, most of the time Hofman tells them to leave the critter where it was found. A tiny bird fallen from its nest will learn to fly and find its way home, she said. But when callers insist, or when she believes an animal is injured, the animals come to her sprawling 2.5-acre home nestled in the green foothills.

"They've been doing this dance for millions of years," Hofman said. "It's the survival of the strongest."

Hofman struggles with the next critter ---- a tiny, feisty screech owl that calmed and hooted only after flapping and screaming for a number of minutes. As Hofman let the owl work out its stress, she held its feet carefully. She had already felt what could happen if she didn't.

Screech owls were the first animals she ever cared for, she said. A child who would skip the sock hop to visit the zoo, Hofman was aided by a park ranger in caring for three little owls she found. The first day she fed them, she wore shorts. As she squatted to feed one, the owl dug its talons into her thigh.

"She'll reach out and nail you," Hofman said as the screech owl flapped its wings in a flurry. "She'll do it so fast you won't even see her coming."

While humans are usually quite clumsy in their care of wild animals, she said, the animals themselves are often ungraceful. A red-shouldered owl that Hofman picked up as a baby had recently learned that there was a much larger world than the small cage it lived in inside Hofman's kitchen.

To help the bird learn to stretch its wings, Hofman recently had put the owl in a large cage outside. Two solid planks of metal and wood provide the structure for the cage, but much of the walls are made of soft netting.

The owl, watching with wide nickel-sized eyes as guests came closer to her, took flight. Without much practice, it veered head-first into the metal, slid down the length of the wall to the ground and squawked.

Pretty soon, Hofman said, the owl will be strong enough to fly around the cage, and eventually out of her life and back into the infinite sky.

That's the best feeling, she said. Just as with a red-tailed hawk she cared for earlier this year, letting the animals return to the wild, she said, evokes an unparalleled feeling in her.

"I thought she was going to fly down to the ground," Hofman said, remembering the moment she let the hawk loose. "But she didn't. She banked and flew right up to a big oak tree and shook off her feathers and was home.

"There's so few human accomplishments that give you that feeling."

Contact staff writer Nelsy Rodriguez at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2626, or nrodriguez@californian.com.