They See Beauty in Helping the Beast

Greg Hickman walked into a large cage and coaxed a young great horned owl off its perch and onto his heavily gloved hand. Four other owls watched with great round eyes.

“All of these birds have been shot, either with BBs or pellet guns,” said Hickman, director of the North Orange County Regional Occupational Program. “This little guy was hit by a pellet gun and left lying along Santiago Canyon Road with a broken wing bone. We patched him and the other ones up. They’re just about ready to go back to the open spaces.”

Once, when the fields and mountains of southern Orange County were as wild as any in the West, its furred and feathered creatures had it to themselves.

But with raging development, the number of people who shoot owls and hawks for fun and often leave them wounded has doubled in recent years, according to wildlife experts. Opossums are trapped in backyards, baby bobcats are taken from their mothers for pets and then abandoned. The list goes on.

Paradoxically, the one place in the county where wild birds and mammals can be treated for wounds or sickness, then returned to their native haunts--and where teen-age and adult students are taught the tricks of understanding their patients--is in a busy commercial-residential neighborhood in Anaheim, miles to the north: the North Orange County Regional Occupational Program.

The state-funded program, on a two-acre compound on La Palma Avenue, is licensed by the state Department of Fish and Game to rehabilitate any wild creature, from bears and mountain lions on down.

“We’ve never had a bear, but we have had a mountain lion,” Hickman said.

In his almost 15 years at the school, Hickman and his small staff have had more than 4,000 students, mostly from high school districts and almost all interested in becoming veterinarians, game wardens or even pet store operators.

The students get school credit but have also worked on holidays, without credit, to clean cages and feed animals. They have helped in the operating room and helped build structures, including the new 2,000-square-foot mews (shelter for birds of prey such as owls and hawks).

More than 30,000 animals and birds have been received. About half of them were brought back to health and returned to the wild.

“This is not an easy A course,” Hickman has said. “If a kid comes in here and doesn’t really accomplish something, he’s out.”

Now Hickman and some others, including Fish and Game officials, are talking about opening a similar rehabilitation center in the south county to handle the problem more efficiently there.

Lt. Lisa Cole, who is in charge of Fish and Game wardens in Orange County, said: “There’s a real need in the south county because of concerns generated by the population growth. If Hickman can get one started, it would be a fine thing.”

Gilbert Aguirre, senior vice president of the sprawling Santa Margarita Co. development near Trabuco Canyon and a vice president of Rancho Mission Viejo, has talked to Hickman and said he also likes the idea.

“I would be glad to work with Hickman on this, and I have told him I will bring the matter up at the next Santa Margarita board of directors meeting in December,” he said.

Hickman estimated that the project would need about two acres, $250,000 for buildings, a treatment room, cages and mews, plus a $100,000 annual budget.

Along with care and treatment of wild animals, the program teaches students and the public--who can visit the center--how to get along with animals without unnecessary danger to man or beast.

In the south county, where coyotes have attacked children, that kind of education is increasingly important, Hickman and developers agreed.

“The friction caused by the proximity of wild animals with civilization has to be one of the main reasons for mountain lion confrontations, coyote invasions, problems with opossums, skunks and other creatures,” Hickman said. “And that seems to be especially true in the south county.”