El Paso Matters – ‘Running out of time’: El Paso wildlife rescue prepares new generation of rehabilitators

Sun rays streamed through a mesh enclosure as pigeon chicks hopped about and pecked at the ground at the Second Chance Wildlife Rescue.

Outside, Habib the deer dashed across his roughly 1-acre paddock as wildlife rehabilitator Josie Karam prepared for her daily routine of feeding, cleaning up after and treating dozens of rescued animals. 

Karam said it was a busy October for the rescue, which she has run for over 30 years from her Upper Valley home, as baby birds continued to come through her doors throughout the unusually warm fall season.

“These birds should not even be hatched at this time of year because a lot of them are starting to migrate to Mexico and South America for the winter. I’m very surprised that we were even getting babies in because it’s way over our season … and that just impacted us here,” Karam said in late October.

Karam, 80, is one of two rehabilitators in the region licensed to take in ill, injured, orphaned or abandoned animals from West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico. 

Chicken and pigeon chicks share an enclosure at Second Chance Wildlife Rescue, Nov. 8, 2024. Founder Josie Karam said the unusually warm fall tricked many birds into hatching eggs far later in the season than normal. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)

Over the years, she’s taken in squirrels, foxes and various species of birds from raptors to hummingbirds, most of which got released back to the wild.

Just this summer, the rescue took in nearly 2,000 birds and small mammals — some coming from as far as Abilene, Texas. Habib came to her in 2018 as an ill fawn who was improperly cared for, making him unreleasable and a permanent resident of the rescue.

Luckily, Karam expects to get some help from a group of young volunteers who are taking courses with the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council, a nonprofit that offers training and support to wildlife rehabbers worldwide, to become a state-licensed rehabilitator.

Among the volunteers is Victoria Pennington, who paused her pursuit of a veterinary medicine degree to help wild animals in the region.

“I wanted to be a vet, but I think seeing wildlife rehabilitation and how we can make that difference caught my attention,” Pennington, 26, told El Paso Matters.

Victoria Pennington, who Second Chance Wildlife Rescue founder Josie Karam describes as her “right hand,” talks about her passion for animal rescue, Nov. 8, 2024. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)

Once Pennington completes her courses and passes the exams needed to get certified, she hopes to help Karam reopen a 7-acre facility in Vinton, Texas, located just outside Northwest El Paso.

That facility, owned by Second Chance Wildlife Rescue, is one of the few remaining portions of the Rio Bosque Wetlands, which once stretched for miles along the Rio Grande. It has pastures, enclosures for both mammals and birds and a pond where rescued critters can be released.

LEARN MORE: The quest to save El Paso’s diminished wetlands

“In Texas, you can only have one property under your license. So, if we go to reopen the other property, then we’re probably going to need someone to put that property under,” Pennington said.

The facility was initially going to be run by another rehabilitator who quit just before the start of the spring, Karam said.

“He resigned right as we were opening the season. So, it dumped all of the traffic over here at my facility,” Karam said “We desperately need the Vinton facility open to take in more animals and more birds.” 

Both Karam and Pennington said they hope to get more people interested in becoming wildlife rehabilitators.

Josie Karam, founder of Second Chance Wildlife Rescue, trains volunteers and rescuers to do intake procedures with birds and mammals at the organization’s property in Vinton, Nov. 8, 2024. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)

“I’m 80 years old right now. I’m running out of time, so I’m really focused this year on training some very exciting young people about wildlife. They want to do it. They want to learn,” Karam said.

Warm weather makes for long season

Karam said she normally releases the last rescued baby birds of the summer by late September. As the season slows down, Karam said volunteers and rescuers get time to rest and maintain animal enclosures.

“So far, we have not had that rest period,” Karam said.

This year, the rescue was taking in hatchlings in late October because warmer temperatures were “tricking” birds into thinking it was still summer.

Josie Karam, founder of Second Chance Wildlife Rescue, holds a tiny knit basket that she has used as a nest for hummingbirds, Nov. 8, 2024. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)

The average temperature for El Paso in the month of October has risen gradually from 67 degrees in 2022 to just under 74 degrees in 2024, according to data from the National Weather Service.

Karam said she doesn’t care to talk about climate change, but has seen the effect rising temperatures have had firsthand.

SEE ALSO: El Paso County eyes excavating, deepening Ascarate Lake to prevent dying fish, leaking water

“Climate change is realistic on one side and also political,” Karam said. “All I can talk about is, the last two years have been so hot in the summer, it is even killing the insects.”

Karam said she has had fewer insectivore species, such as opossums which only eat insects, come to the rescue and has seen more birds die from heat stroke and dehydration.

Besides the heat, Karam said new developments encroaching on animals’ natural habitat have been one of the biggest threats to wildlife in the region.

RELATED: Stress during capture likely killed Bob the Goat, Texas parks officials say

“We’ve lost about 70% of all wildlife in the last 40 years. That’s a horrible number,” Karam said. “All the cities around us are taking up all the desert. They’re taking over the mountain with building projects. Houses are going up all over and that’s taking up their natural habitats.”

Even with the mounting work or running a wildlife rescue, Karam remains hopeful a new generation of rehabilitators will take the helm to help animals throughout the borderland.

“I think I could see myself eventually running my own rehabilitation center. But that would have to be a lot further off,” Pennington said.

Wild ducks take flight from a pond at Second Chance Wildlife Rescue, located on a property that was once part of the Rio Bosque wetlands area in Vinton, Nov. 8, 2024. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)

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