Animals in Rehab - Standout Stories
Below are short bios of some of the animals that have been rehabilitated through our program Cottonwood Rehab. It takes a tremendous amount of time and money to ensure a successful release of a healthy animal. Each animal has their own set of needs and special diet. Each diet is created with their natural habitats in mind to ensure their success when released.
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Please read each bio and we appreciate a donation to help ensure these animals are released successfully.
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Meet Linda
Arrived: May 7th, 2025
Released: December 13th, 2025
Linda's story began before she arrived. A call came into us from New Mexico Game and Fish that they had picked up a bear. When that call came, head of rehab and Vice Chair, Dr. Ramsay, along with Executive Director Nirankar Horak, braved some rain to clean and prep our ICU enclosure.
To our surprise, when she arrived, Linda turned out to be a cub born that year — far too young to survive on her own. New Mexico Game and Fish had been monitoring her for a few days in hopes that her mother would return. When it became clear she was alone, they safely captured her and brought her to our center.
This little cub was from the Santa Fe area. She arrived dehydrated and hungry, but full of energy and spirit. At her age, she needed intensive care and her food costs climbed quickly — your support made a big difference!
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A huge thank you to Officer Apodaca and the team at NM Game and Fish for their dedication and swift action to get her to us. With their help, we were able to give Linda a real chance at survival. She was released at over 90lbs.
Arrived: March 6th, 2024
Released: July 7th, 2024
Meet Prayer
When Prayer arrived at our center, we believed she was a young bear who had been separated from mom and was about a year to two years old.
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She is probably the most emaciated (starved) bear that has come into our center. We knew she was in trouble because she couldn't stand normally, she was bent at the knee on her front legs and looked like she was bending over to pray. With her stance and the questionable outcome she would have and needing all the prayers she could get, she got her name.
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***Starvation is a very complicated issue. Bringing an animal out of starvation too quickly can cause more damage then help. We are grateful for Lafeber EmerAid.. This has been a huge tool for us to be able to combat starvation, especially in our bears.
For the first week, we had a lot of questions about her outcome, but she showed she had a lot of fight left and she wanted to LIVE. Within 4 days of syringe feeding her, she started being able to open her mouth enough to self feed. In a month, she was able to stand up on two legs and let us know we were not welcome in her cage. We moved her out of the ICU cage and into a finishing cage. Come July and she was ready to be released! Leaving our facility at 126 lbs, she was happy to go.
When we loaded her up in her travel unit, we checked her teeth and realized she was an adult -- much older than we thought when she arrived. Something must of happened to create a situation where she could not take care of herself and spent all her energy healing her body. Had she not been brought to us by NM Game & Fish, she would not have survived much longer in the wild. We are glad that we were a small moment in her life and grateful she was able to be released back to where she belongs, in the WILD.
