Every Life Matters: Inspiring Stories of Wildlife Rescues and Releases

A juvenile red-tailed hawk was perched above the fawn pen. Watching for lunch or watching for me? That s where you enter the exciting, heartbreaking, and joyous world of wildlife rehabilitation through the inspiring stories of some of the wild animals brought to Oaken Acres Wildlife Center. Author and wildlife rehabilitator Kathy Stelford recounts the misfortunes and victories of 24 of her most memorable patients from rescue, through painstaking care, to triumphant release back to their true homes in the wild. This is no how-to book on wildlife rehabilitation, nor will every wildlife professional agree with some of Kathy s methods, but like everything Kathy undertakes, this book contains her extraordinary heart, the testament of a woman who would let nothing stand between her and her dream to help save injured and orphaned wild animals. From the smallest foundling Slinky, the mink, to the largest gunshot victim Uncle Buck, a 13-point deer, Stelford brings the reader up close and personal into the lives of wild animals that most people never have the privilege to see. Celebrate with Kathy each release and, by the end, be convinced that every life does matter.

Kathy Stelford moved from the suburbs of Chicago and founded Oaken Acres Wildlife Center in 1984. Since then she has cared for over 7,000 injured or orphaned wild animals on her 33-acre farm in rural Sycamore, Illinois. In 1999, she became the founding president of TAILS Humane Society in DeKalb. She is longstanding member of the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association, the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at Northern Illinois University for 18 years, and has served on numerous not-for-profit boards in DeKalb County. She lives at Oaken Acres with her extremely patient husband Mark, two mutts Buddy and Tanzi, three stray cats Mookie, Shemp and Cali, and a host of wildlife that varies by the day.