MAN RESUSCITATES WILDLIFE SANCTUARY.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Daily News Staff Writer

After a long day of herding cattle and breaking horses, Bob Vann remembers how he would stop to take a breather along a quiet trail, what is now Lang Ranch Parkway, and see the coyotes, deer and as many as six owls at a time hiding in the sprawling oaks.

These days, the Thousand Oaks grandfather is still on horseback riding trails, but the animals are few and far between, rarely poking their heads out to dare the bigger city dangers in their back yard.

``You'd watch the wildlife come out right below you. It was just a beautiful feeling,'' said Vann, 60. ``When you see them splattered on the grill of a big Mack truck or on the roadway, it's heartbreaking.''

For years, Vann has worked alongside wildlife rehabilitators, those animal lovers who give medical attention to sick and injured animals and then return them to the wild.

Recently he took the helm of the Thousand Oaks-based Raptor Rehabilitation and Release Program, a long-running organization that earlier this year underwent staff changes and was nearly disbanded. Vann hopes to breathe new life into the group.

``There's nobody out there doing it,'' said Rebecca Dmytryk, a Malibu-based wildlife rehabilitator whose organization California Wildlife Center recently began helping out in the east county area to handle the shortage of services. ``As long as they're going to be a good rehabilitation center, I wish Bob the best of luck. I just hope he does it right.''

Mending sick and injured wild animals is a tricky business, not for the faint of heart and not for those who can't say goodbye to a furry friend nursed back to health.

Rehabilitators work on the premise that wildlife should remain in the wild, and their role is simply to provide emergency, temporary medical treatment to injured critters.

They fix up animals hit crossing the road or mend the wings of birds shot by hunters or sport shooters, or nurse possums or raccoons that locals may have scooped up as babies but can no longer keep.

``Yesterday, we had a ruddy duck come in, a little songbird that fell out of a nest, (and an) owl that came in this morning,'' Dmytryk said about her Malibu center that picked up those and other animals last week in the east county area.

If she started thinking about keeping any of the animals, Dmytryk knows her work would be done for.

``You'll ruin their life,'' she said. ``You won't be able to improve their condition, which is to get them back into the wild.''

Starting out small

Animal control officials say rehabilitation groups are needed in the county to care for the wildlife they can't help. The county animal control handles primarily domestic animals - cats, dogs and other pets - that need owners.

Without rehabilitators to care for injured wildlife, animal control officers have few choices, they said.

Vann plans to start out small in his efforts to revitalize the Raptor Rehabilitation organization, hoping to take on only as many animals as the licensed workers can handle.

Nestled along donated property at the Chumash Interpretive Center at Oakbrook Park, the center now has little more than empty cages and piles of debris that are being sorted through as members fix up the site.

``We've got a lot of cleaning going on out there,'' he said. ``We're going to downsize what we did before. We had too many animals.''

Started by longtime rehabilitator Jerry Thompson nearly 15 years ago, the program began to fall apart when Thompson left to pursue other activities in the spring and leadership changed, organizers said.

Volunteers dwindled, and eventually there were no members qualified with state fish and game licenses to care for the animals, threatening the group's operational status.

Vann, who had been a member for about five years, recruited new board members in recent weeks. Four members plan to take an upcoming training course to prepare them to become licensed to handle the animals.

Once up and running, the program can care for up to 15 animals at a time at the site. If animals are too ill for their care or require surgery, mostly volunteer veterinarians associated with the group will be called in.

An Echota Cherokee, Vann has tapped the American Indian community for volunteers, and American Indians now make up the majority of the board.

They plan to bring part of the philosophy of their culture to the rehabilitation work.

``All Native Americans, all Indians have a very, very close relationship with all living things,'' he said. ``Animals are our brothers and sisters. . . . We feel like we're taking care of our relatives.''

The program requires about $20,000 annually to operate - funds for medical supplies, animal food and overhead such as the telephone and electricity bills and gas money to drive to and pick up animals.

It remains a nonprofit group and relies solely on donations and an all-volunteer staff of rehabilitators.

Vann has no plans to quit his day job as a state ranger or take a salary for his work. His plan for now is to give the animals a fighting chance to keep the county their home.

``We get phone calls in the middle of the night to come out and get animals. We get them down to the tweety birds. We try to help anything,'' Vann said. ``With all of the construction going on, all of the construction wiping out native woodlands, a lot of the animals are finding their homes few and far between.''

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PHOTO (Color) Bob Vann heads up the Raptor Rehabilitation and Release Program.

David Sprague/Daily News