Debra Jo Chiapuzio starts her day at 7:30 a.m. feeding orphaned wildlife while making formula.
Next, she starts cleaning cages, doing laundry and dishes, and stopping her tasks to care for new animal intakes. She often ends her day at 10 p.m. after taking care of sick, injured and abandoned wildlife in her care.
This is a typical day for Chiapuzio.
She’s the founder and director for the nonprofit organization The Wildlife Foster Program, which she has operated for the past five years. According to Chiapuzio, she is the only home-based wildlife rehabber licensee in all of Orange County.
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The organization is Chiapuzio’s way of helping sustain the environment and save squirrels, raccoons, skunks and opossums — animals that many people don’t care whether they live or die.
She only gets overwhelmed with her caretaking responsibilities when she doesn’t have an animal in her hands, Chiapuzio said.
“Even through all the hours, all the finances, [and] everything that it takes to run a rehabilitation center, I have really found something that slows me down, calms me down and touches my heart and my experiences all at the same time,” Chiapuzio said.
The goal of the Wildlife Foster Program is to rehabilitate sick, injured and abandoned wildlife while providing nurturing care to help animals return to their natural environments, according to the organization’s website. They specialize in opossums, skunks, squirrels and raccoons.
Chiapuzio has always worked with animals.
She started working with livestock when she was young, which led her to the domestic animal world. She eventually stumbled upon wildlife rehabilitation when she first found and assisted a small opossum.
When Chiapuzio held the opossum in her hands, she said that she fell in love.
“We look at all kinds of animals that we fear or are unfamiliar with, and we dislike it, and the minute you get it in your hands, even a baby rat is cute, you know?” Chiapuzio said.
On average, animals spend about four months rehabilitating at the center before they are ready to be released. The majority of the animals that are brought into the center are released back into their natural environments, Chiapuzio said.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife only allows licensed rehabbers to hold animals for six months.
After six months, rehabbers can ask the department to hold an animal longer or see if there are openings for animals deemed unreleasable to find a home, according to Chiapuzio.
Another option is euthanasia.
For Chiapuzio, it comes down to what is more humane, depending on the case.
Chiapuzio said the organization releases an average of 800 animals per year. The main focus is Orange County, but they get calls from San Diego and Los Angeles Counties.
Chiapuzio understands community members’ frustrations when they find an animal and not knowing what to do, but her hands are already full with the animals she is currently tending to.
She said she can only help the best she can.
“We are limited as to what we can do by the size of our property, the amount of caging that we have, and so it’s really hard,” Chiapuzio said. “One person, even if we do have volunteers, can’t take care of every single animal in Orange County.”
Eva Sowinski, lead volunteer at the organization for about two years, believes the organization can offer a balance between humans and nature if the public is educated about what it has to offer.
“It’s really important to educate our public about how [The Wildlife Foster Program] can protect wildlife because it’s a balance between us and nature, and a lot of people don’t know what to do,” Sowinski said.
Animals are brought in by community members or animal control who find sick, injured or abandoned wild animals, Chiapuzio said.
“We are not animal control,” Chiapuzio said. “Rehabbers don’t go out and pick up animals.”
When an animal is brought to the organization, Chiapuzio examines the animal to make a plan to help nurture it back to health, then puts it into action. Community members fill out a form while Chiapuzio makes her assessments.
Once animals are taken into care, Chiapuzio and volunteers nurse them back to health or keep babies until they are big enough to survive in the wild on their own.
Babies are kept in their own room inside the house and are placed in incubators to provide a warm, safe and controlled environment to help neonatal animals recover.
“It’s a 24/7 job when it’s baby season,” Chiapuzio said.
The release of animals depends on the species, behavior and health to determine overall ability to be able to survive in the wild, Chiapuzio said.
Chiapuzio and volunteers take a hands-off approach when animals move into or are in the outside caging. This is to prepare the animals to be released and encourage natural instincts, or as Chiapuzio calls it, “wilding up.”
“If you are going to be a rehabilitator, you need to be responsible,” Chiapuzio said. “You need to take your hands off, offer wooden items, trees, sticks they can climb, and things that will match nature that you are going to put them in.”
A hands-off approach and giving animals enrichment in nature-like environments also ensures the safety of the community because familiarity with human items can lead wildlife to be drawn to communities, according to Chiapuzio.
Chiapuzio said she often sees people trying to domesticate raccoons on social media. She has also had residents bring in raccoons that have reverted back to natural instincts after an attempt of domestication.
“Raccoons are not what social media leads them to be,” Chiapuzio said. “If you see a one second snapshot of a raccoon, you do not see how many seconds there are in a 24-hour day.”
But wild animals living in a cage for the rest of its life is just not what it was meant for, Chiapuzio said.
Chiapuzio also shared a moment she had with a raccoon who came into her care named Henry.
When Chiapuzio first met Henry, he was very calm and domesticated. She and volunteers worked hard to enrich Henry to reintroduce him to wild behaviors, but she was doubtful that he would ever be able to be released.
Despite all doubts, six months after Henry was brought into the center, he showed signs he was ready to be released back into the wild.
Volunteers and Chiapuzio released Henry with about 12 other raccoons, and after an hour, they started to go their separate ways.
But before Henry went off with the other raccoons, he ran up to Chiapuzio to touch her leg.
“That raccoon just told me, ‘Thank you,’” Chiapuzio said.
Chiapuzio has about 12 volunteers help her with caring for the animals with tasks like releasing, dishes and laundry.
She said that the volunteers have become like a family to her.
“I am surrounded by very good hearted, conscientious, wonderful people and that makes the things that are hard here, balance out,” Chiapuzio said.
Sowinski, a volunteer, said that she has stayed with the organization because of Chiapuzio’s supportive environment and encouragement to learn.
“That personality and the joy that [Chiapuzio] has for what she does is so contagious,” Sowinski said.
Sowinski helps Chiapuzio feed animals, clean cages, monitor new volunteers, transport animals when needed and help out with events. As a cartoonist, she also helps fundraise with her cartoon creations.
According to Chiapuzio, she and her husband have funded about 90% of all the resources and tools to operate the rehabilitation center out of their home. The other funding comes from donations from the public.
Chiapuzio’s future goal for the organization is to get volunteers licensed to be able to gain more rehabilitation centers.
“If I had 10 houses that could run 800 animals a year, what wonderful thing would that be for our community,” Chiapuzio said.
For more information about The Wildlife Foster Program, click here.
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