One woman finds healing by caring for wild animals on the Palouse

It’s dark inside this large red barn just north of Moscow, Idaho. But a few steps further and through a door is a clinic full of windows, flooded with sunshine.

This is the home of Palouse Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation.

Ryan Law runs the nonprofit, caring for lots of different animals.

“(We) had a lot of successes, but had a lot of failures, because the learning curve is great,” she said.

This wasn’t Law’s original career path. She’s been an EMT and a schoolteacher. 

But about 20 years ago, her daughter was killed in an accident. That’s why she started rehabilitating animals.

“People start something, sometimes because they need a place to heal. And they need to find a way to make life significant to them again. And that’s what this has done,” Law said. 

The job has been rewarding. Law recalled nursing a baby porcupine back to health, after the mother had been shot.

“There’s that bittersweet moment of, ‘Oh you’re mine and I’ve loved you all this time, but now here’s a chance for you to go free.’ And those feelings are incredibly rewarding. To see an animal that is wild, wants to be wild, to go back to where it is meant to be,” she said.

All animals that show up at Palouse Wildlife get the same treatment. They’re weighed and checked for dehydration. Law also makes sure baby animals get warmed up.

Ryan Law holds a turtle in the clinic of Palouse Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation. (Credit: Phineas Pope / NWPB)

She says the job can put her in a tough position. Sometimes, people bring in animals that don’t need to be rescued. Deer and rabbits will leave their young alone for hours — making it seem like they’ve been abandoned. 

“People pick them up, they take them, they bring them to a rehab center, and then you have an animal that’s really compromised because it’s not with a mother,” she said.

There’s a variety of animals receiving care at Palouse Wildlife. Q-tip the porcupine shares an enclosure with a raven just outside the clinic.

Being a fan of NPR and my name, Law named that raven Phineas Pope.

Phineas Pope, the raven. (Credit: Ryan Law)

Full disclosure here: I found that out after I set up this interview.

I then found out the raven named after me has some bad habits — like stealing food from Q-tip. 

There’s also Haku the pig, who was brought to Law from a neighbor because he wasn’t breathing right. 

Law told her neighbor that if she saved him, they wouldn’t get the pig back.

Now, she said, Haku draws lots of attention from visitors.

“Everybody comes out here. I have the coolest animals in the summertime, you know? But who do they love? The pig. They love the pig,” Law said.

This story is part of a continuing series highlighting nonprofits in the Northwest.