Terrell Lester
Sports Editor
—
She is Mother Nature’s right hand.
She is part Mother Teresa, part Florence Nightingale, part Jane Goodall.
She tends the sick, the injured, the orphaned.
Not for personal gain, but for personal need.
Annette King Tucker has answered a calling, is following her heart.
She is the lifeblood that flows through Wild Heart Ranch, a wildlife rehabilitation halfway house carefully positioned on 10 bucolic acres of rolling countryside in Rogers County near Foyil.
She is licensed by the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation to provide medical support for any and all species of wildlife before releasing them back into the wild.
Since 1996, when she walked away from a lucrative field in the mainstream business world, she has provided non-profit, around-the-clock care and comfort for more than 16,000 wild animals.
There have been bears and mountain lions, coyotes and raccoons.
There have been peacocks and owls, beavers and armadillos.
Hers has been a land-locked Noah’s Ark.
If it flies or glides, waddles or walks, if it is suffering or abandoned, traumatized or vulnerable, this distaff Dr. Dolittle speaks the language of compassion.
In accordance with state parameters, her territory is confined to Mayes, Rogers and Delaware counties. But her work, her reputation, her selflessness know no boundaries.
At the age of 42, Annette has committed her very being to helping wildlife in need.
She takes no salary from the ranch.
The heels and business suits she wore as an insurance agent have given way to sandals and cutoffs and T-shirts.
She can’t remember the last time she had a day off. “At least five thousand, five hundred days,” she says.
More scars adorn her hands and wrists than jewelry. “You can’t see my skin for the scars,” she says.
She is not one to complain. There is no room, no time in Annette King Tucker’s world for cavil.
She has a job to do.
“One hundred percent of my life is my job,” she says.
“Every person who’s worth their oxygen wants to be needed, wants to be necessary, wants to be useful,” she says.
“I OD on that every day!
“I think that we’re all supposed to find a way to be necessary, and to contribute, and to serve in some way.
“Some people serve by making a donation on Sunday at church. Some people serve by teaching kids sports, or Scouting, or feeding the hungry.
“This is my niche. It just happens to be a really big niche.
“Well, it’s not really a niche. It’s kind of like the Grand Canyon.”
If Annette had the spare time — “Spare time? What’s that?” she asks — she could branch out and create a new niche: standup comedienne.
She has the timing of a vaudeville veteran. She has the sense of humor of a comedy club emcee. Her banter is rapid-fire. Her wit is even quicker.
And she has the engaging personality to deliver. Her smile is incandescent. Her laughter is a thing of joy, a phenomenon to behold.
It is that disposition, that poise, that self-assurance that enables Annette to confront the daily mélange of medical emergencies with heightened sensibilities and rapt sensitivities.
The two spotlessly clean clinics in her compound are efficiently maintained, humming and nurturing, by Annette and her experienced crew, which can number as many as 20 with a telephone call.
An injured hawk. Two motherless fawns. A maimed fox.
Annette cannot anticipate what might arrive, or in what condition, in 15 minutes, in two hours, in a day.
“You’ve got to be prepared for everything that comes in the door,” she says. “Every species. Every age of every species. Every possible situation every age of every species could get into.
“You’ve got to be ready. That’s why I’ve got a truckload of supplies. You stockpile everything, because you never know.”
What she does know, though, is that operating a wildlife rehabilitation facility “is the most expensive form of animal rescue there is.”
“That is the biggest challenge we face,” she says. “It’s ridiculous.”
She relies on contributions. Donations. The generosity of others.
Her most munificent benefactress has been longtime friend Sandy Brooks, herself a licensed wildlife rehabilitator.
“We wouldn’t be here without her,” Annette says flatly. “We would’ve shut down three years ago.”
With the financial support of Sandy Brooks, Annette was able to continue to pursue a lifelong ambition, in her words: “to work as an instrument of compassion and provide a haven for those who have no person to claim responsibility.”
She launched this mission in 1996, purchasing the small farm and establishing an indomitable bond with a Claremore veterinarian, Leslie Cash Warren.
During 12 years of assisting Warren as a technician, Annette learned her way around a clinic.
Today, she can stitch a gash on a coyote’s neck, place a mallard’s broken wing in a splint, nurture a malnourished bobcat back to health.
“I’m not here performing brain surgery,” she says. “But as far as being able to clean and close wounds, I’ve learned all of that from Dr. Cash.
“If it’s a fresh wound, it can’t wait. These animals come in on the weekends, in the evenings. She can’t afford to make my patients a priority.
“It’s just absolutely faster if I am able to do it.
“If I wasn’t any good at it, I wouldn’t do it,” she said.
She became so good, so well-versed in the nuances of wildlife rehabilitation that she wrote the book on the subject.
“The Road to Release,” she says, “is a non-technical, comprehensive guide for the rehabilitation of injured, sick and orphaned wildlife.”
It is one of two books, plus a score of poems and short stories, she has authored.
Depending upon the circumstance, the rehabilitation period for some animals might run into several months. Six months is not uncommon. A year is not unheard of.
Then the animals must be released back into the wild.
Annette has beaten back any urge to become attached to her patients.
“Otherwise, I would have about 16,000 pets,” she said with her signature infectious laugh.
“Oh, yeah, I would have run away a long time ago!”
It is her responsibility to return an animal to its suitable wild habitat once care is completed.
“They belong to Mother Nature from the day I get them to the day I let them go,” Annette says. “There were never mine.
“A wildlife rehabilitator never feels ownership. They never feel the need to protect the wildlife forever.
“When I have an animal that’s in a cage, I don’t want them in that cage one day longer than they have to be, because they don’t belong to me. They don’t belong to man. They belong to nature. They belong in the woods.”
Annette says that her success rate of returning those injured and abandoned animals back to nature is 95 percent.
“That means that 95 percent of the 1,000-plus animals that come in leave out of here healthy and wild and free,” she said.
“That’s really a high ratio.”
It is a number of which Annette is proud. As proud as a mother who watches her offspring take a first step.
Annette turned to the opening lines of a poem she penned, entitled “I Am an Animal Rescuer.”
“My job is to assist God’s creatures. I was born with the need to fulfill their needs.”
contact
wildheartranch.org
