 EMERGENCY RELIEF AND REHABILITATION (ER)
 This division seeks to provide emergency relief to distressed and displaced wildlife by direct intervention through the setting up of conservation rehabilitation centers, mobile veterinary services (MVS units) in critical wildlife areas and networking with rehabilitators, veterinarians and conservation agencies across India for rapid action.
The main objectives of this division are to;
- Identify high-risk areas of wildlife displacement and to establish centres of excellence for wildlife rehabilitation in these areas.
- To develop species-specific and region-specific rehabilitation centres to address the rehabilitation needs of the country.
- To provide, emergency relief and health care to wild animals through MVS units.
- To create a national wildlife rehabilitation network by supporting veterinarians, rehabilitators and local NGOs in different parts of the country.
- To train personnel through workshops, hands-on training and internships in wildlife rehabilitation and health management in different parts of the country and critical to wildlife.
- To develop and disseminate information on wildlife health and rehabilitation for better understanding and rapid action.
These aims will be accomplished by the following three components of the division;
Conservation Rehabilitation Centres (CRC)
 The establishment of these CRCs will be based on, either one or a combination of the following criteria;
- Bio-geographic regions of India
- High-conflict areas.
- Political regions.
- Key areas of conservation significance.
CRC are classified into the following categories based on the purpose of establishment:
- Region-specific rehabilitation centres
- Species-specific rehabilitation centres
Region Specific CRC:
i. Rehabilitation Centres for Wildlife around natural habitat:
It was observed that displacement of wildlife largely occur in undisturbed natural habitats that may or may not enjoy a legal protection. For that reason these centres are selected on the basis two important considerations, firstly the area is a high conflict zone and secondly a key area of conservation.
At present WTI has two such centres in the northeast India , Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC) in Assam and Centre for Bear Rehabilitation and Conservation (CBRC) in Arunachal Pradesh.
ii. Rehabilitation Centre for wildlife in human settlements:
To mitigate man-animal conflicts i n rural and urban areas rehabilitation centres are established in these areas to control such emergencies in the future. Though these areas may not enjoy a legal protection, the habitat can support good wildlife population. For this purpose WTI has partnered with Save Our Wild Life (SOWL) of Bangalore for help and support in mitigating problems in the region.
Species Specific CRC:
Apart from rehabilitation centres addressing regions of wildlife significance,
there are also species that need to be addressed specifically. The species
belonging to this group are either displaced due to frequent poaching or live animal trade or constant man-animal conflicts. Species like Himalayan black bear, sloth bear, hoolock gibbon, red panda, star tortoise, Olive Ridley turtle, etc require emergency relief measures. Centre for Bear Rehabilitation and Conservation (CBRC) in Arunachal Pradesh is one such centre set up by WTI that handles such emergencies.
Mobile Veterinary Service (MVS)
 Considering the vast wildlife areas in the country, it is humanly impossible to cover the entire region with conservation rehabilitation centres, while taking into account the enormous amount of resources both financial, manpower and technical expertise that may require in the process. For that reason the most prudent option was to set up Mobile Veterinary Service (MVS) units directly by the WTI or in partnership with other conservation agencies.
A mobile veterinary unit usually consists of the vehicle, a wildlife veterinarian, an animal attendant, equipments and supplies. The entire unit will function under the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) of the Wild Rescue Program at WTI. A MVS unit becomes a complete asset of WTI if all the components are provided by WTI. Alternately, the Wild Rescue program could support individual veterinarians who agree to work as per the SOPs of WTI. In such cases, WTI could support either one or more of these four components that comprises a MVS.
Placement of MVS units in areas is determined by the following two rationales: (i) Areas of greater wildlife-livestock intermingling and (ii) Frequent reports of epidemics amongst wildlife. Based on these criteria, current priority areas include Northeast India , South- Western Ghats, Orissa, Uttaranchal, Vidharba and Southern Gujarat .
Networking and Capacity Building
 Since wildlife rehabilitation as a discipline is new to India , networking and capacity building exercises are aimed at capacity building of rehabilitators working in the wildlife sector. These include wildlife veterinarians, rehabilitators, local NGOs and wildlife mangers across the country.
This component of the Emergency Relief and Rehabilitation division seeks to provide the following;
- Developing a formal or semi-formal national network of wildlife rehabilitators, veterinarians and rehabilitation centres that can implement the WTI Emergency Relief (ER) charter throughout the country.
- Conducting training programs for wildlife veterinarians and forests officials on wildlife rehabilitation and also to send meritorious candidates to training programmes at various workshops in the world that may assist greater understanding and skill and contributing towards wildlife.
- Developing and disseminating information on wildlife health and rehabilitation
- Developing an easy-to-comprehend manual on rescue and rehabilitation of wildlife
WTI has recently launched Wildlife Rehabilitators’ Exchange Network (WREN) a national network of wildlife rehabilitators, veterinarians and rehabilitators across the country.
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