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Because You’re so Amazing – A Gift to All Our Users!

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Wildlife Rehabilitators Are Amazing!

It has been a year of unlearning. We have had to unlearn all of our normal patterns and come up with new ones to match the times we live in. In many ways unlearning is a very important skill and I think our community has it in abundance. While the pandemic had little to no effect for some, for others it had a devastating blow. Despite this global event the wildlife rehabilitation community showed it’s incredible resilience in the face of all of it. What a community of people we have! Organizations had to cut staff, intake more patients and limit or completely eliminate their essential volunteer programs; and yet they still kept going. You are all amazing and we are so honored to support your efforts in the best way we can.

First off, we need to send a huge grateful, heartfelt, giant blown kiss and thank you to everybody that donated during our end-of-year fundraiser. We recognized the fact that it was not exactly the best time to do it, but our resources were getting lower then we like to keep them. To date, we were able to raise around $12,000!!! Bless you all, so much!!! This money will help us upgrade many of the tools we use to keep WRMD working smoothly and efficiently. WRMD just keeps on growing and so we have to continue to grow our database as well. For those that became sustaining donors with yearly, quarterly or monthly contributions – we are eternally grateful for your support. With this support from all of our donors we are able to continue to Keep WRMD Free to All. We consider this project a group effort and without the support of those that can contribute we all help those that can’t.

If you would like to become a recurring donor please visit https://www.wrmd.org/donate. Our goal is to have a sustainable recurring donor base of $1,000 per month.

A Gift From Our Friends at Birds of the World – Cornell Lab of Ornithology

We are always looking for better opportunities and partnerships for WRMD, as are some of our most avid supporters. Well one of these amazing supporters has worked out a deal with The Cornell Lab of Ornithology – Birds of the World to provide all WRMD users free access to their database. If you haven’t used this before, prepare to be amazed! Almost anything that you could possible want to know about any bird in the world is all in one place. When do they migrate, where do they migrate too, when do they molt, what do they sound like? You name it, it is all there. We plan to push up this new update this weekend March 27, 2021. After that there will be a small change to the Dashboard page, where this amazing resource will be located. We are very excited about this resource and it is our hope for you to get loads of information out of it and enjoyment it! Stay tuned for an update to the WRMD dashboard for a link to Birds of the World.

Slowing Down on New Feature Request

We also are in the process of slowing down on new feature requests. We have so many on our plate that we need to get done, we just can’t really accept new ideas at this time. This year we hope to role out a new Daily Tasks feature we have been working on for some time now, that will encompass all of the rechecks prescriptions and daily husbandry needs of the patients. This will help you organize all of your daily tasks in a much more efficient manner. We also have a long list of little upgrades and features that need to be adjusted and finished. So, for now feel free to send us new ideas, but there is a good chance we will not be able to get to them this year.

The Future of Wildlife Rehabilitation Data

When Devin and I (Rachel) started this project we did not know where it would take us, but we had a vision of where it could go. Our #1 priority has always been our users and the integrity of their data. This year we will surpass 2 million patients from dozens of countries dating back to 1979. No where in the world is there a data set like this one, so what do we do with this knowledge, how can we benefit wildlife rehabilitators and wildlife as a whole, and what does this look like while maintaining the security and integrity of all of our users? We are starting to have to face this question as our users, researchers and journalist learn about us and are looking for information about wildlife. We have always used WRMD as a source of aggregate data… While not everybody uses WRMD, the bulk of patients that come into rehab probably use WRMD, so it is the largest most diverse dataset in the world for wildlife patients.

Within California, where we live, we have been working with UC Davis, California Fish and Wildlife and around 40 participating wildlife organizations to help us create a way to make aggregate data usable for not only researchers or agencies, but also wildlife rehabilitators. While we will never, ever release personal identifiable information unless prior approval from the directors of an organization, the collective aggregate knowledge has potentially powerful implications. What if we were able to identify potential disease outbreaks in wildlife before it becomes an outbreak and your organization is automatically notified to watch out for these patients early on? Maybe better legislation can be passed because we have evidence of the damage rodenticide and lead have on wildlife populations. Or maybe the value of wildlife rehabilitation as a professional field is recognized and programs are created to help fund our work. There is a growing realization in the world’s agencies of the need for better monitoring of all animals – silver lining to Covid-19… Wildlife Rehabilitators happen to be first responders to any wildlife health event and they have the most realtime in-the-field information; therefore rehabilitators are valuable and essential members in the larger conversation of the One Health discussion.

Our hope is that we can use this aggregate data to help wildlife rehabilitators, support wildlife and promote the importance of our field. We want to do this while maintaining the trust of our users and integrity of the data. We know that not all of our users understand this crazy, online, database, techy world and we promise that we will never do anything with the data without your knowledge. The last thing we want is to break your trust in us. We are working though this learning process very slowly and deliberately to make sure it is done right. So, stay tuned for any further developments if you are interested.

– Rachel Avilla

Dear WRMD Community

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We’re writing today to ask for your support to help keep WRMD awesome. WRMD was developed to help wildlife rehabilitators save lives, but it does a lot more than that, and it just keeps getting better.

We would like to ask you to take a few minutes to bask in the awesomeness of WRMD and think about how much it has helped you, your organization, and the wildlife in your care. We’re also asking that you make a donation if you can, so we can keep up our important work. Ok, prepare to bask.

Since WRMD officially launched in 2012, 793 organizations in 48 US states and 22 countries have signed up and use the database, and over 1.8 MILLION patients have been admitted.

In addition to those tremendous accomplishments, we have developed a version of WRMD for the Oiled Wildlife Care Network in California (called O-WRMD) for use during oil spills to enable better care of large numbers of patients. Another project WRMD is very proud of is the Wildlife Morbidity and Mortality Event Alert System that is currently being used as a wildlife surveillance tool in California in conjunction with the One Health Institute at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and the Department of California Fish and Wildlife.

Over the last few years the WRMD team has also been busy adding new features including a Hotline extension that allows you to log your communications with the public as well as track the progress of an incident’s continued communications. Not only can you search callers to see if they are repeat offenders but you can also quickly identify calls that may be about the same incident.

Here are just a few of the ways that WRMD is changing the way wildlife rehabilitators work.

WRMD Helps the Patients In Your Care
  • Review patient records to see what treatments were effective
  • Provides access to the database from anywhere
  • Enables collaboration and communication with caretakers
  • Scheduled rechecks helps ensure patients don’t fall through the cracks
WRMD Helps You Save Time and Resources
  • Saves valuable time and resources by no longer needing to chase around paper records
  • Provides effective and efficient ways to organize rechecks and medications
  • Year-end reports can be generated with the click of a button
WRMD Elevates the Profession of Wildlife Rehabilitation
  • Rich and insightful analytics can be used to learn about who, where and why patients are admitted
  • The new automatic Circumstances of Admission tagging provides a powerful vision of why patients are admitted, so you can better target your outreach
  • The Expenses extension records daily expenses for each of your patients and helps calculate the cost of care for each patient or each type of expenditure (like medications)

In addition to all of that awesomeness, there is a lot going on behind the scenes. Did you know that most of the WRMD work has been done by just two incredible people?

If you’ve ever met WRMD co-founders Devin and Rachel, you probably already know that they work tirelessly on WRMD, making updates and improvements based on what users are asking for, several times a year for free. They keep track of every suggestion and develop new features based on what people are asking for. They even do all of the customer support themselves.

One of the most remarkable things about WRMD is that it’s FREE. Not only is it free for anyone, but the WRMD site doesn’t sell ad space to pay for this service and they don’t do anything weird like sell your information or data. This means that they depend on their users to keep WRMD going and constantly improving.

Think about how much you would pay if you had to build your own WRMD. What do you think would be fair and affordable? Please consider making a monthly donation to WRMD in that amount or consider adding it together for a yearly donation. It will be you and the patients in your care that will benefit!

Thanks so much,
– The Wild Neighbors Database Project Board of Directors

Oh, WRMD!

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For several years, Devin and Rachel have been working with OWCN to modify WRMD for use with oil spills, and this year, the Oiled Wildlife Rehabilitation Medical Database (OWRMD) made its big debut. So far, OWRMD has been used for two single-animal spills, and the recent Cuyama River Incident.  The very first spill patient input was a Bell’s Sparrow.  Cuyama was the first “big” test of the system…

OWCN Blog – Oh, WRMD!
https://owcnblog.wordpress.com/2020/08/17/oh-wrmd/

Read the full article on the OWCN Blog

It’s been an honor and a pleasure to work with the Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN) over the past several years. OWRMD has developed into an amazing program that advances the care and documentation of California’s oiled wildlife.

Wild Hope Magazine

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Hello friends! We are very excited and honored to have been featured in an article in Wild Hope Magazine.

If you are not familiar with this fantastic magazine then definitely check it out! They feature inspiring stories from around the world about preserving Earth’s biodiversity co-created by naturalists, conservationists, wildlife rehabilitators, veterinarians, biologists, ecologists, nature writers, photographers, and artists.

Our article: “Helping Hands, Wildlife Rehabilitators Around the World are Using Information Technology to Save the Lives of Our Wild Neighbors” can be read online in its entirety. It shares how important WRMD is to the wildlife rehabilitation community and how valuable the wildlife rehabilitation community is to advancing One Health.

Please support Wild Hope Magazine as they continue to share field notes and images from nature’s front lines!

PS: Thank You Kathryn Arnold!

Early 2020 Updates and Important Information

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Now That Most Of the Reporting Is Done..

December and January are two of the busiest months for WRMD. Reporting takes its toll on everybody. We  work really hard to make sure that everybody’s reports are functioning correctly and that giant reports are not crashing our servers, which has happened a few times. Every year or two we have to upgrade our servers to handle all of the activity that happens this time of year, and we  will be upgrading again soon. Thank you for your patience. 

NWRA Symposium

WRMD will be attending the NWRA Symposium this year in South Padre Island, Texas – Feb 25-29. If you are also attending we would love to meet you! Bring any and all questions, concerns, comments and feedback to us, or just come by and say hi.  We will also be presenting on Thursday morning from 8:30-9:30AM and hope to see you there!

We are especially looking for feedback for our proposed new Husbandry extension. If you have been waiting patiently for this extension please come and chat with us. We are looking for suggestions and advice on recording husbandry information.

Analytics

Devin, our developer, has been working extra hard to improve the Analytics section of WRMD. We want our users to be able to view their data in whatever way they need. All I can say is that what he is creating is absolutely beautiful! Seriously, the graphs are like artwork and the information they provide is invaluable. Devin  is doing everything he can to get it done so he can unveil it during our presentation at the NWRA symposium (fingers crossed). Things to look forward to!

M-Opinion & the Migratory Bird Treaty Act

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act is under attack and birds need you to speak for them. The language within this 100+ year old treaty has been scrutinized and recently a new proposed regulation change is underway. The M-Opinion  proposes to redefine the meaning of the “incidental take”. The change effectively allows anybody who “accidentally” destroys, kills, or harms any MBTA protected bird, nest or egg to do so with no penalty. An example of this would be an oil spill where birds are not intentionally harmed. Currently, oil spillers have to pay a price for this. The M-Opinion would make it so they could get off scot-free. The same would be true of a tree-trimming company did not intend to wipe out an entire colony of herons and their nests. They may now experience no repercussions. On a smaller level, we may no longer be able to tell the public that removing a nest that has baby birds in it is illegal. We all know how devastating this could be to all MBTA protected birds. USFW has finally opened this up for public comment and we need to comment this until they have no more space on their server to hold all the comments. Spread this far and wide. We only have until March 19, 2020. Let’s do everything we can to stop this change. https://www.regulations.gov/document

A Great Question From a User

This is from a new user and it inspired me to write this blog:

“I have just one more question as well. I am using the program for our intakes only. We are a larger facility and still growing and the rehabilitation staff have a paperwork system that works really well for them as far as exams, feedings, vet visits etc. Does utilizing your system just for what we need hurt us in anyway? I was not sure if I just used it for intakes and out comes and used our paper system for the rehab side of things if that would be an issue in anyway.”

Here is our response: 

We designed WRMD so that it could be used any way you want and need. Most wildlife rehabilitation organizations that have existed for 10 years or more started with paper records, which is completely fine. However, one of the big reasons we developed WRMD was to create a tool that can save institutional knowledge in a useful, easy-to-search format. When we ask, “What medication did we give that patient 5 years ago that worked, because we now have a similar situation?”, we can easily and quickly find the answer in WRMD. With paper you really can’t do that. So much information is lost on paperwork. On the flip side I do think that it can work great for many tasks such as husbandry charts or prescription forms that can be written on and checked off. WRMD provides many paper forms within our “Paper Form” extension that, when used, translate nicely into the digital format of WRMD. 

We have found that the normal progression of our WRMD users is to start small. Many rehabilitators just add in their intakes and dispositions to get the reports and basic stats they need. Once they get used to using WRMD and can navigate more easily, they slowly start to incorporate its’ other features. Features like the Prescriptions extension can automatically calculate the dose your patient from the last recorded weight once you add information into your Prescription Formulary. In order to do that you need to use Locations and record in weights. If you use the Rechecks feature, a daily calendar is automatically generated for you on a daily basis, but you have to add in these rechecks.  All these little features help save you time that could be used on animal care instead of paperwork and calendars.. How you use WRMD is up to you. We support you, whatever way you decide to use WRMD. Our first priority is to make things easy for our users, and everything else comes later.

– Rachel Avilla

We’re Hiring a Technical Writer!

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Organization Description

The Wild Neighbors Database Project is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization which supports international wildlife rehabilitation by developing online data management software and helping implement its use worldwide. Through the continuing development of data management software, including WRMD, we are enabling wildlife rehabilitators to collect, manage and analyze data from their patients, so that together we can continue to improve our best practices and make a difference in all wild lives.

Reports To

The Technical Writer will report to Rachel Avilla, Customer Relations Manager.

Job Overview

This position will be responsible for creating content for the WRMD knowledge base. We are looking for a person that can take the detailed and nuanced technical attributes of WRMD and distill them down to conceptual and task-based documentation that any end user can understand and use.

This is a contracted job until the project is completed. After that point the contract may be extended for maintenance of the knowledge base and to help answer daily questions that come through WRMD’s forum.

Responsibilities and Duties include but are not limited to:

  • Developing and writing user documentation on how to use WRMD’s many features.
  • Developing and applying uniform style guide for the formatting, approval, presentation, and release of technical documents.
  • Help create online video tutorial screencasts that compliment the written tutorials.
  • Create a glossary of WRMD terms and uses.
  • Write descriptions and overviews of WRMD’s extensions.

Qualifications

  • Two years of experience working in wildlife rehabilitation.
  • Experience using WRMD.
  • Excellent technical writing skills.
  • Experience with WordPress.
  • Proficiency with computers and learning new software.
  • Ability to be a self-starter and take a project and run with it.

Budget

The Wild Neighbors Database Project has a budget of $10,000 for this project. Payment plan will be negotiated depending on skills, output of work and timeline.

How to Apply

Please send a cover letter, resume, and an example written tutorial of any WRMD task to [email protected]. We will be accepting submissions until October 15, 2019.

2018 Recap and Plans for 2019

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I’ll admit it. We’ve been terrible at keeping you informed about how WRMD is doing and what updates we are making. Sorry!

2018 was another busy year for us with lots of new wildlife rehabilitation organizations signing up, some major new features added. We also traveled to meet with our users as often as we could afford it.

In 2018 WRMD admitted an incredible 231,903 patients! That is a major increase over past years. These patients were admitted in by over 500 accounts across 15 countries. Speaking of countries, we are proud to welcome organizations from South Korea, Ireland and Trinidad and Tobago!

We had some amazing milestones in 2018 that we are very proud of:

Wildlife Rehabilitation Medical Database was written into California legislation in Assembly Bill 1031. The Native California Wildlife Rehabilitation Voluntary Tax Contribution Fund allows California tax payers to make voluntary contributions into a competitive grant program whereby California wildlife rehabilitation organizations can apply for a grant, for the purposes of the recovery and rehabilitation of injured, sick, or orphaned wildlife, and conservation education. To be eligible to grant funding “The applicant shall maintain active participation in the Wildlife Rehabilitation Medical Database.”

On October 26 2018 the 1,000,000th patient was admitted into WRMD! A Great Horned Owl from Raymond California admitted to Fresno Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation Services.

We (The Wild Neighbors Database Project) have been accepted as an Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN) member organization. The OWCN is a statewide collective of trained wildlife care providers, regulatory agencies, academic institutions and wildlife organizations working to rescue and rehabilitate oiled wildlife in California. Over the past few years we have been developing a specialized version of WRMD to work specifically for oiled wildlife events. That project is nearing completion and we are now proud to be part of the OWCN response team if (hopefully never) an oil spill occurs in California.

Plans for 2019

In 2019 there will surely be many tweaks and updates but we do have 3 major changes to announce.

Entirely New Way to Generate Reports

Very very soon, WRMD, will have a new way to view and generate reports. In this new way, you will be able to favorite reports for quicker access and preview reports before printing, emailing or exporting them. Each reports will also have unique filters to allow you to modify them as needed. For example, in some reports you will be able to set the reporting dates or exclude certain species taxonomies. This new feature will be available in about 1 week. Expect a blog post detailing how this works.

Prescription Formulary

A commonly requested features is to allow users to maintain their own prescription formulary for common drug/medication prescriptions. This is number 2 on the to-do list. In the formulary you will be able to define a drug, dosage, concentration, route, frequency, duration and many other things. When your formulary is created, you can then choose a formula when writing a prescription to autopopulate the prescription fields. You will also be able to set the dose to be automatically calculated based on the patients last weight.

Species Notifications

Another common request is to have automatically triggered notifications if (for example) a certain species is admitted. We think this is a cool idea. These notifications could be sent by email and/or text message. We need to gather more information about how this might work and how you might use it so please tell us your thoughts.

Contributors

Lastly but not least, we would like to thank everybody that has made donations to our 501(c)(3). Your generosity is what keeps WRMD going, creating new features and answering your questions. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

The 2017 New Update is Coming!!!

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This has been a very busy year for WRMD! During the last 12 months we have attended 7 events where WRMD was represented. We got to travel to 5 states and had the pleasure of visiting over a dozen organizations, most using WRMD and some not using WRMD. Never in our wildest dreams did we think our little database project would travel around the globe and be used by nearly 400 organizations in 46 US states and 11 countries!!!

Who do you Love?:

We appreciate all of the support and gratitude we receive from our dedicated wildlife rehabilitation community. It makes us so happy to know that WRMD has made a positive impact on your organizations. If anybody would like to add to our testimonials page we would happily post it during the new year. Just email me at [email protected] (Yes, I finally have an easy email address). If you email me a testimonial by Feb 1, 2018, you will be entered in a raffle to win a free Med, Large or X-Large WRMD teeshirt, or a Sergio Lub Wild Neighbors bracelet.

Annual Report Reminder:

This is the time of year most organizations are beginning to think about state and or federal reports. Please let us know if there is something not right with your report so we can fix it ASAP, and hopefully not at the last minute.

IMPORTANT: If your species are not coming up correctly on your reports, it is likely because you have species whose common names have been entered incorrectly, which categorizes them as “unidentified”. If you do a full search and export your patients class, order and family, you will be able to see all patients in your database that are unidentified.

2017 Update Release on Dec 25 (SERVER WILL BE DOWN):

We have been working all year on a very big update. This update has most of the additional suggestions and features that we have accumulated over the year. With this update we are also updating our servers, which should help in WRMD’s  overall speed and performance. After this update is released PLEASE feel free to contact us if something is not working as it should. With all updates not everything will be 100% perfect, but we have made sure that all reporting is as perfect as we can get it.

****IMPORTANT:  On December 25th WRMD will be down all day! Please plan to have no access to WRMD this day. Hopefully, you can take a much needed day off from data entry. On Dec 26th there will be a new and improved WRMD to use. ****

In the next Blog post we will outline all of the updates and new features we’ve  added to WRMD.

Thank you and have a good holiday season!!!

Resiliency in the Face of Disaster

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Hi all,

This year Devin and I (Rachel) went to the Florida Wildlife Rehabilitation Conference just 10 days after hurricane Irma wrecked havoc on Florida. It was beautiful to see that even after such devastation the group still came together, supported each other and had their conference. It was a beautiful thing to see. Now in my home town, I am seeing the same thing happen.

As you may know by now, Northern California is experiencing a devastating series of fires. The Tubbs Fire, Atlas Fire, Sulfur Fire, Redwood Complex Fire, Pocket Fire, Nuns Fire…. The list goes on. It is my home turf and several of my family and friends have been affected and lost homes. Devin and I are however, safe for now. We may be surround on all sides, but our little valley seems to be okay this year. We just wanted everybody to know we are safe, vigilant and okay.

In the midst of this terrible tragedy our surrounding Wildlife Rehabilitation organizations have been helping each other out, sharing, switching and transporting patients. We are part of such a compassionate, caring, and wonderful community.

After hurricane Harvey, Irma and Maria it almost gives you hope, despite all of our differences, we can join together and help each other out. Especially our awesome worldwide Wildlife Rehabilitation Community.

The Power of Appreciation

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It is mid-August! Hopefully there is light at the other end of the tunnel for most. During season we lay low. The last thing a wildlife rehabilitator needs in the middle of season is more stuff thrown at them. We understand.

However, this year we were taking a trip to New Mexico for other reasons. Now, when we travel anywhere, for any reason, it usually becomes a WRMD trip as well. We contacted 4 organizations in New Mexico that have accounts with us to see if they were able to take time in July, yes July, to quickly “haha” meet with us.

All 4 of the brave organizations agreed. So, in mid-July we visited:

Wildlife Rescue Inc, of New Mexico and Hawks Aloft joined our meeting with Wildlife Rescue Inc, as they work together a lot. We visited for a few hours and they had some really good questions as well as some very good suggestions, some of which will be implemented in the New Update (ETA in Oct.).

We also visited On a Wing and a Prayer, a small one woman operation working her tail off. Then we ended the trip visiting New Mexico Wildlife Center.

We would like to thank all these organizations and the people who welcomed us in and helped coordinate our visit (Cecilia, Jim, Mikal and Melissa), mid-season, for a chance to discuss what is working well with WRMD, what has been challenging, and where could we improve the user experience.

This is how we operate. This is how we develop and grow. This is how we can keep our finger on the pulse of wildlife rehabilitation. It is exhausting and a lot of work. However, every time we travel and visit our users we are rewarded ten fold with new ideas, suggestions and even sometimes praise, which is very nice…

I have to suggest to everybody, if you are a wildlife rehabilitator and you are traveling, find the organizations near you, call them up and try to visit. You will learn more then you can imagine and it continues to strengthen our community and the feeling that we are not doing this alone. We all do it a little different and we all do our best with what we have. Give appreciation to one another, we all are sacrificing parts of our lives to this crazy thing we do.