CREATURE COMFORT; TRIO OF WOMEN SHOWS KINDNESS TO ODD CRITTERS.

Byline: Carol Bidwell Daily News Staff Writer

Not everybody wants to mother an ugly iguana. Or a smelly skunk. Or a rat-like opossum.

But somebody's got to do it.

So three Valley women devote their free time to providing what mom couldn't - food, a warm place to sleep, protection from bigger animals and the elements - until wild and exotic animals who've been orphaned are ready to survive on their own or be adopted into a permanent home.

``You just can't turn your back when an animal needs help,'' said Evelyn Gabai of Van Nuys, a rescuer of orphaned opossums. ``You have to take care of them when they can't take care of themselves.''

Rescue groups are literally lifesavers for the wild and exotic animals they care for, said Bob Ballenger, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control. Animal control officers - who deal mostly with stray and injured dogs and cats - aren't trained to care for unusual animals, so they turn to rescue groups, whose members have mostly been trained by officials at the Wildlife Way Station in Little Tujunga Canyon.

``We call these rescue groups, and they're Johnny-on-the-spot,'' Ballenger said. ``They'll nurse the animals back to health and release them. They spend their own time and own money and get special training on their own. They're real experts. And they do a great job.''

Modern-day dragons

Actress Joleen Lutz of Burbank became an iguana rescuer by accident four years ago when her actor-husband, Danny Hart, talked a young boy into giving up his malnourished iguana. Lutz studied iguana care and nursed him back to health.

Ozzie, now a 15-pound lizard that looks like a medieval dragon, is a healthy 5 feet long.

``When I got him, he was very mean and wild,'' Lutz said. ``He had parasites. His arm was all beat up. (The end of) his tail had broken off.''

To care for a lizard Ozzie's size, she started reading, working with the reptile experts at the Wildlife Way Station and corresponding with an iguana expert in Oregon. Gradually, Lutz became an expert, too, becoming foster mother to unwanted iguanas, teaching free classes in iguana care and preparing would-be owners to become iguana ``parents.''

And she learned how little most iguana owners know about their pets. Told to feed them leafy greens, most supply only lettuce (which has few nutrients) instead of mustard, collard and beet greens and other fruits and vegetables, she said. And most owners generally don't seek help for an ailing iguana until it's too late to reverse an illness.

Owners also are not prepared for how sexually aggressive a male iguana can be, even attacking its female owner when in a mating mood, she said.

``You can have a sweet little iguana, and its hormones kick in and you've got a major terror,'' Lutz said.

Ozzie, who divides his time between a large aviary in the back yard and the heated corner of a kitchen booth, shares the Lutz house with a cat, a rabbit and a female iguana, Cookie, for whom Lutz is looking for a new home.

But it takes a special kind of person to love an iguana. They're not cute and definitely not cuddly, although Ozzie doesn't seem to mind being picked up and petted by his owner.

``They're such a wild animal,'' Lutz said. ``He'll never be like a dog or cat. He'll never say, `I love you, mom.' ''

Playing possum 

Eight years ago, a friend called Evelyn Gabai of Van Nuys with a question: What do you do with an orphaned baby opossum? She didn't know, but the friend persevered on his own, feeding the baby and keeping it warm. When she visited a few weeks later, ``I fell in love with that possum right on the spot,'' she said. ``I was hooked.''

The free-lance animation writer decided she would become an opossum rescuer and foster mother. After training with the Opossum Society of the United States, based in Irvine, she began taking in tiny pink babies - some about the size of a human's little finger - that had fallen out of their mother's pouch.

Of all the wild animals rescued, opossums are perhaps most in need of care. ``They're about the size of a bumblebee when they're born,'' Gabai said. Instinct leads them to crawl up their mother's belly and into her pouch, where they latch onto a nipple. They grow up in the pouch until their eyes open and their skin grows a coarse coat of hair to help withstand the world outside.

Babies found without a protective coat of hair usually die, regardless of how hard rescuers work to save them, Gabai said. But older opossums can be bottle-fed until they can eat mushed-up dry cat food.

Then they're released into wooded areas where there's a nearby water and food source (they eat carrion, tree rats, vermin and rotten fruit), but where they're unlikely to come into contact with humans.

``Even with possums who have been hand-raised, it's very instinctual for them, that imprint of how to survive in the wilds,'' she said.

Many people are afraid of the opossums because they look like big rats, Gabai said, but the furry creatures are harmless - even if cornered, they do little more than hiss and show their 54 teeth. The nocturnal creatures seldom contract rabies or any other disease dangerous to humans, and they actually keep yards and gardens clean of pests and vermin.

Little stinkers

Most people head the other way when they get a whiff of that distinctive aroma of eau de skunk. Not Share Bond. She knows one of the critters must have been attacked - or at least badly frightened by something or someone - to have let loose with its smelly defense mechanism.

``It takes a lot to get a skunk to spray,'' said Bond, a Topanga writer. ``I run outside whenever I smell skunk, but usually to no avail. The smell of skunk carries for two blocks or more, so I rarely find the skunk.''

It's not often that another animal will risk a tussle with a skunk.

``If a skunk and a grizzly bear cross paths, guess who gets off the path?'' said Bond with a laugh.

But the little critters don't get the same respect from humans, who fear them as rabies carriers (very rare, according to Bond) or aggressive odor-wielders (skunks quietly live under many homes unbeknown to the owners).

It's even illegal to possess a skunk, but Bond is working to educate animal control officers and city and county officials so her group - S.K.U.N.K.S. (Society of Kind Understanding For Not Killing Skunks) - can get a permit to legally help the animals.

``As far as the state goes, they would prefer that skunks be left to die,'' Bond said. ``As long as there's ignorance about the skunk, I'm never going to get a permit.''

So, along with her education effort, she works quietly to nurse orphans back to health. After five or six months with her, they're released into the wild, where they survive on insects, rodents, cockroaches, spiders and even snakes.

``Skunks are really very sweet - just misunderstood,'' Bond said.

THE FACTS

Here's how to reach rescue groups that specialize in wild and exotic animals:

S.K.U.N.K.S, P.O. Box 82, Topanga, Calif. 90290; [phone].

Opossum Society of the United States, P.O. Box 16724, Irvine, Calif. 92713; [phone].

Winged Iguanas, Burbank, [phone].

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Share Bond cuddles a young skunk in her care. She says the striped critters are greatly misunderstood.

Evan Yee/Daily News

(2) Evelyn Gabai looks after opossums Annabelle, top, and Totoro at her home.

Myung J. Chun/Daily News

(3) Ozzie, an older male iguana, perches on Joleen Lutz's shoulder.

Phil McCarten/Daily News