CLAREMORE — For years, Annette King Tucker has rehabilitated wildlife from her Foyil animal clinic, Wild Heart Ranch.

But now the U.S. Department of Agriculture seeks to change the status of the clinic from a rehabilitation facility to an animal exhibitor — a move that would critically damage the facility’s ability to gather donations, Tucker said.

“Basically, what’s gone on up to this point is that the USDA has gotten the impression that Wild Heart Ranch operates both as a wildlife rehabilitation facility and as an exhibitor of animals for profit,” said attorney Patrick Abitbol. “As such, they are seeking to require Annette to get an animal exhibitor license from the USDA.

“She would be prohibited from using any photos or videos of the animals at Wild Heart for the purposes of raising money. Being familiar with the work that Annette does at Wild Heart, it’s my belief that she is not an ‘animal exhibitor,’ but a wildlife rehabilitator who operates solely through contributions and donations. To prohibit her from using images of the animals and what she does at the ranch in conjunction with announcements of donations being needed — and this includes images found in social media, such as Wild Heart’s Facebook page —  would critically impede her ability to solicit contributions.”

Tucker herself has an even bleaker picture of what pulling all photos and videos of Wild Heart Ranch from the Internet and publications regarding donations needed would do to the wildlife rehabilitation center.

“Oh, it would practically kill us — effectively cutting off our ability to garner contributions, which are already hard enough with the economy and with us being solely dependent on donations to operate,” Tucker said. “We’re a 501(c)3, which means we’re a charitable organization — we’re not here for money or as a hobby. We’re here to care for these wounded animals that wouldn’t otherwise have a place to go for rehabilitation.

Abitbol said Wild Heart Ranch’s attention was drawn to the USDA in February, when an Australian group found word on the Internet about Tucker’s assistance in rehabilitating Irwin the kangaroo, featured previously in the Claremore Progress.

The organization then contacted the USDA, whose investigation into Tucker’s operations at Wild Heart Ranch led them to suspect her of operating an animal exhibition.

Abitbol disagrees. “It’s my position that Annette’s facility does not operate as an ‘animal exhibition’ center, but as a rehabilitation center, which its currently licensed for,” he said. “People do not come and pay a fee to look at the animals she tends to there, and she does not keep the animals, they are there for rehabilitation purposes only — all the sick or injured animals taken in there are done so with the expressed intent to fully rehabilitate them, so that they can be released back into the wild.”

Abitbol said that Wild Heart Ranch’s visibility — regularly featured in the media when Tucker assists in the care for neglected or abused animals — impressed the USDA that her facility operates to not only rehabilitate, but exhibit the wildlife taken in.

“Annette’s in the press regularly when she steps in and agrees to take animals rescued from puppy mills or neglected horses, etc., but she and her volunteers do so much more there than just what makes it onto the evening news,” he said. “She works year-round tending to injured animals that people never hear about and I’ve been there when they’ve had dozens of litters of baby animals (when wildlife have their young) at a time — all of them needing feeding, care — I know there are times when the staff there goes days without sleep because they’re tending to the animals around the clock.”

Abitbol noted the USDA had received considerable negative attention on the Wild Heart Ranch Facebook page, but he discouraged such reactions as well-meant but unproductive.

“The USDA is a federal agency which is there for a good purpose,” he said.. “Negativity towards them, although well-intended on the part of those supporting Wild Heart Ranch, isn’t helpful towards our end goal in this, namely, to fine a mechanism which will allow a bonafide non-profit wildlife rehabilitator such as Wild Heart to take in donations without being viewed (by the USDA) as a ‘profit’ organization — they just don’t fit into that category.”

For Tucker, the recent situation with the USDA is “extremely discouraging,” but she’s hopeful that Abitbol and fellow attorney Scott Troy can find a resolution to allow her to garner donations — “not for me, but for the animals,” she said.

“I clearly don’t do this for myself, and it’s not for the attention, or ‘the money’,” she said, almost laughing. “I do this for the animals and the animals alone. We spend our own money, and with the donations we receive, on supplies, food, bedding, medicine, with the aim to recuperate these animals and return them to the wild where they belong.”