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Wild Tails Captures Stories of Wildlife Rehabilitation

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Tuesday January 31, 2017

By Cookie Steponaitis

Growing up in Ripton, Mickey lived on a family farm and wandered the mountains of the area deer hunting and picking blueberries. Living a life which he called, “poor in money and rich in everything else,” Mickey, his two brothers and sister learned a great deal about the habits and habitats of animals.  “From my grandparents and parents, I learned to respect all different animals,” explained Mickey. “We hunted to eat and not for sport and nature gave us what we needed to live. My father was one of nine brothers and sisters and the land and the animals provided what we ate.”
   Growing up to teach school and have a 38-year career as a draftsman and mechanical designer, Mickey always had contact with animals from the standpoint of a small farm and food on the table. “ I had chickens, turkeys, rabbits, goats for milk and raised large gardens to supplement our food. Yet it wasn’t until later in life that Mickey came full circle back to his roots and became involved in the lives of animals from the standpoint of healing and returning them to their roles in the natural world. Moving to Panton with his lady Teresa, the coupe earned a permit to help orphan wild animals, including rabies vectors. Dedicated, capable and flexible in their care of the wildlife they were at one point surprised to learn that they were one of only two facilities in Vermont allowed to help orphan skunks, raccoons, fox, woodchucks and coyote. Working together and sharing animal rescue adventures for 35 years the pair successfully helped return countless animals to the wild. “I never saw them as potential pets,” explained Mickey. “That respect for their wildness was something I learned early in my life and I always worked to return them to where they belonged.”
   While the children were grown, and gone, one of the three grandchildren were working on learning to read when Mickey began writing down tails and adventures of the pair over the year. Beginning with one titled Skunk Tails, Mickey’s captivating stories of how the pair cared for injured animals caught the interest of his grandchild and started Mickey on a path of recording some of the more memorable adventures with skunks, fox, and young bobcat Mickey simply called one angry wild kitten. While Mickey does have a soft spot in his heart for the gray Woods Fox the couple saved and writes of the joy in seeing it at release disappear into the woods to return to being wild and free, he recounts each animal with detail, delight and the same respect for wild creatures that came to him in his childhood.
Not one for limelight or publicity of any kind, Mickey and Theresa’s animal adventures are recorded in a booklet simply titled Wild Tails. “People who know us will recognize us by our first names,” concluded Mickey. “For those who don’t know us the importance is on the stories /adventures with the animals and not us as people. While Mickey no longer takes in wild animals he is a great source of information and is linked to the wildlife rehabilitation community around the state. Today he enjoys a huge variety of birds from his back deck and gazes at the woods around his home with the sharp eye of a man who knows the habits, habitat and patterns of life in Vermont’s hills. Each story in Wild Tails is a documentation of a trial and error and learning curve of two people determined to make a difference in the lives of animals and to see, as Mickey writes so often in his book, “to see them disappear into the forest where they belong- wild and free.”    

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