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Do you know the difference between the native owls of Ohio? Do you recognize a harmless Eastern Rat Snake, or understand how flying squirrels fly?

Do you understand the laws governing wild animals that have been injured or orphaned?

Children and parents alike got the answers when a group of avid hunters and trap shooters, the Fitchville Conservation League, sponsored Mona Rutger of Back to the Wild, Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, from Castalia, for one of their community meetings.

Back to the Wild is a privately owned corporation that manages a rehabilitation center in Castalia with its primary mission to rehabilitate and ultimately release back into their natural habitats, injured and orphaned wildlife. Back to the Wild also presents educational programs to local schools, park systems and community groups.

Mona Rutger, interested in wildlife for as long as she can remember, tried to explain how she got started helping wildlife, “I’m not sure if I can truly answer this question, because I believe IT (wildlife) found me.”

In the spring of 1990, after being a secretary for 22 years, she decided she wanted to spend more time out of doors and quit her secretarial job. Soon, she was working with the Ohio Division of Wildlife, National Wildlife Research Center, and volunteering at local state nature preserves, teaching about animals and their need for habitat, as the greatest threat to wildlife today is not hunters or disease, but loss of habitat.

Wanting to do more, she fixed up a place in her new barn to take care of orphaned or injured animals. In no time at all she was busy. The first year she served about 54 wild animals. Rutger said, “By spring of 1992, my wildlife patients jumped to over 800 individuals. I‘m not sure when it happened, but at some point, ‘Back to the Wild’ took on a life of its own and consumed mine with it. In just 9 years, we built 21 outside cages to accommodate over 1200 wild animals, and put in an amphitheater to seat over 100 school children!”

Rutger’s message to the Fitchville children included advice about abandoned animals in the wild. Before approaching unattended animals, stay at a safe distance and observe the situation. Do not remove animals from a nest and if you are positive they are truly abandoned, call a rehabilitation center before taking action. In many cases, the mother is nearby, afraid to return to the nest because you are near. Even if you accidentally have human contact or pick up the babies from a destroyed nest, the mother will usually take over the babies again after you have gone.

Rutger explained it is only with license from the Division of Wildlife that she is authorized to help wildlife. Ordinary citizens can be prosecuted if they attempt to rescue and raise orphaned wildlife or make a pet of a wild animal. At the Back to the Wild Center, all rehabilitated wildlife is released back into the wild. Some individuals that cannot be released due to permanent injury are allowed to be kept in captivity solely to aid in educational programs given by the Center.

Such animals were the owls Rutger takes with her to show people. The great horned owl gets its name from the tufts of feathers on its head. The barn owl is the only one always found near humans, usually in barns. Cartoons show that owls can rotate their heads completely around, but that is untrue, although an owl can rotate its head a full 270 degrees before it reverses and goes the other way.

Only one owl uses the “who-o-o” trademark owl sound, the great horned owl. Horned owls are very territorial and are warning others of its presence. The smallest owl is the saw whet owl, only a slight handful, while the barred owl is the largest in this area.

Barn owls are now endangered in Ohio as their diet is 99% meadow voles and the meadow vole habitat is nearly gone. These birds of prey, the owls, are valuable to mankind as they feed on rats and mice, animals that left unchecked can produce four million offspring in one and a half years from just one pair of mice.

The flying squirrel Rutger exhibited wanted to stay in his white sock where he felt safe and hidden. Rutger showed the flaps of skin connecting the front feet to the back, which allow the small squirrel to glide from one tree to another, not actually fly. It is native to our area and you could find from 20 to 30 in one tree in places where the habitat is just right for them.

The two common snakes in this area are rat snakes, the Eastern Fox Snake and the Black Rat Snake, not dangerous, but all snakes may bite if cornered. Snakes eat their prey whole after deadening it with its bite. The jaws unhinge and open to allow for swallowing its food, usually mice. Snakes go for several days on one meal.

Interested citizens eager to help rescue injured wildlife can donate to Back to the Wild, which exists solely on donations, volunteer help, private endowments and gifts. Donations may be earmarked for buildings, cages, animal food and medicine, printing costs for literature, or utilities.

Mona Rutger has been nominated by volunteer Dorothy Flounders for Animal Planet's Hero of the Year contest. Dorothy's essay was chosen and to Mona’s surprise and shock, Animal Planet called Rutger to confirm that she is one of the top 10 Finalists! Mona Rutger will win $10,000 for Back To The Wild, if enough people vote for her on Animal Planet's website beginning Monday, Sept. 25 through October 8, 2006. Friends and family can vote also!