ENHS Nature Trails December 2003 Article 1

This month's speaker: Louise Shimmel

So you live in Eugene? You've been to the Cascade Raptor Center? You've met Louise Shimmel? hmmm, I don't think too many of have met the total Louise Shimmel--she is one amazing lady! I've included here some selected excerpts from Louise's own biography as well as incorporated her responses to our Nature Trails' questions.

Sometime between growing up in a family that encouraged an interest in nature and becoming thoroughly enmeshed in the field of animal/bird rehabilitation, Louise managed to earn a BA at Stanford in Drama and English and an MBA from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in international business and accounting. Her business experience runs the gamut from being a paralegal to an international commercial banking officer for one of the nation's largest banks--actually, not such a farfetched background for someone who would found and administer a successful wildlife rehabilitation center someday.

Originally from California and now quite content to live permanently in Eugene, Louise has traveled around the world several times and has lived in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Spain and England. Her father was a high school biology teacher and he took Louise and her brother along on field trips: "We got to play with the snakes; dad did some rehabbing, though I don't remember it very well. And we had a very accommodating mother, even when my brother had snakes . . . . Both mother and dad instilled a deep love, fascination and strong respect for all living things."

About my first teacher influences, I remember "mostly negative: having fights with my 8th grade biology teacher over whether ferns produced chlorophyll and refusing to dissect the sparrows he shot . . . . (We lived overseas at the time and I was attending an American School.)"

Her path towards wildlife rehabilitation, however, began with "discovering in early 1985 that my brother was raising two orphaned squirrels in California. (He was doing tree work and had unknowingly cut down a nest tree; mom squirrel was too freaked by the changes to come back for the babies.) I was so jealous that I managed to manifest an orphaned baby squirrel in my own backyard 3 weeks later. (Again, mom did not come back for it though I left it out for 24 hours.) This experience prompted me to join up with the beginning of Willamette Wildlife to find out proper diet and care . . . . I had found injured birds before while living elsewhere and cared for them briefly or passed them on to licensed rehabilitators, but something about this just clicked, and I've never been without animals in care, mostly birds, ever since. "

Actually beginning her career in wildlife rehabilitation "was really just serendipity; I discovered it later in life after more traditional pursuits." Her move here to Eugene was also serendipity. Louise says she "stopped in to visit a friend in 1983, on my way to Seattle for a job interview and moved here two weeks later. It just felt 'right.' " However, when she first got involved with rehabilitation work in Eugene, Louise had been a vegetarian for years and didn't want to work with predators " . . . and now that's all that I do! Ironic, somehow."

"The rehabilitator who was doing raptors, and who acted as my mentor when I first got involved in rehab, left the area in the fall of 1987, and I ended up with the raptors . . . basically I just fell in love. I feel lucky that I can work with them full time. Raptors also make good educational ambassadors--and it became apparent very early what an important role education could play in wildlife conservation . . . it's the 'prevention' side of wildlife rehabilitation."

When I asked Louise how a drama/English/business major learned animal/bird rehabilitation, she told me, "There is no formal academic training for rehabilitation, but there are national seminars, conferences, workshops--and I've taken everything I could find, and taught classes as well, for several years. I received one-on-one training when I helped to start Willamette Wildlife, a time when it saw many fewer animals, and I could take each one to the vet and pepper her/him with questions; I still assist at most of our surgeries."

Not surprisingly, birdwatching and gardening are two of Louise's hobbies. She still likes to travel and "took 2 months off earlier this year and ran away from home with my dog . . . . managed to put 12,000 miles on the car, visiting various places around the country; had never been in the SW or much of the SE except for Florida; visited lots of national parks, wildlife refuges, friends and family, and two dozen rehabilitation facilities."

When asked, "What will we hear about Friday night?" Louise responded, "An overview of raptor rehabilitation, its trials and tribulations, joys and rewards; our plans for expansion."

Come hear about the work at the Cascade Raptor Center, Louise's plans to build a state-of-the-art educational resource and raptor facility, and meet this amazing lady.

Louise Shimmel, founder and director of Cascades Raptor Center (CRC), has been a state and federally licensed wildlife rehabilitator since 1985, and has permits to work with eagles and threatened/endangered species, and to hold and use certain non releasable birds for education. She has worked with well over 6000 animals of all species from hummingbirds to badgers, including over 2000 raptors (birds of prey).

With a strong commitment to the field of wildlife rehabilitation, Louise served for seven years on the board of directors (two as president) of the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council (IWRC), the primary professional association in the field of wildlife rehabilitation. She has also served for ten years as the assistant editor of The Journal of Wildlife Rehabilitation, a quarterly IWRC publication, and for seven years was an instructor for the IWRC’s two-day intensive Basic Skills class for wildlife rehabilitators. Louise has published articles in the IWRC Journal and Seminars in Avian and Exotic Pet Medicine on emaciation treatment, blood transfusions, and case studies of eagle poisonings and a barn owl with a ruptured egg.

Louise is a member of IWRC, International Association of Avian Trainers and Educators, Raptor Research Foundation, and the American Zoological Association.

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