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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: JAN-FEB 06

DNR seeks to keep wildlife rehab out of West Virginia

CHARLESTON, W.V.–– West Virginia is the only U.S. state that does not issue wildlife rehabilitation permits, and the state Depart-ment of Natural Resources means to keep it that way, says wildlife section chief Curtis Taylor .


The West Virginia 2006 legislative session convened on January 11. Humane Society of the U.S. director of urban wildlife programs John Hadidian and urban wildlife field director Laura Simon have indicated that obtaining wildlife rehab authorization will be a state HSUS priority.


The issue surfaced in Oct-ober 2005 when a state police officer investigating a complaint about shots fired on posted land found about 60 caged raccoons on land belonging to rehabilitator Patricia Hoffman-Butler, 47. The raccoons were seized, killed, and examined for disease by DNR officials. Hoffman pleaded no contest to illegal possession of wildlife on December 13, 2005, and paid $173.50 in penalties.


West Virginia banned keeping raccoons after a coonhunting club trucked as many as 2,000 raccoons north from a rabies-endemic part of Florida in 1976, and released most of them before realizing that some were rabid.