For Dan Foss, it’s a typical early winter morning. An emergency call comes in about a downed bald eagle in Pittston and Foss is ready.

His 2015 Dodge van is loaded with nets, poles, gloves, rappelling ropes, oxygen tank, incubator, game cameras, face shield, dry suit (warmer than a wetsuit in freezing Maine waters) and more. All but the front seats have been removed to accommodate the mountain of essential gear. He leaves his Brunswick base for the 45-minute drive, hoping for the best but prepared for all contingencies.

Foss is an animal rescue specialist. Logging 35,000 to 45,000 miles a year as owner and sole employee of Maine Wildlife Transport — the primarily self-funded nonprofit he founded in 2021 — Foss crisscrosses Maine from Houlton to the New Hampshire border. More often than not, time is of the essence as his work involves lifesaving measures. “Most of the animals we get called on are in very bad condition,” he said.

For Foss, wildlife distress calls can come at all hours of the day and night: 1,120 calls in 2022 alone. (He’s about to tally 2023 numbers.) They originate from wildlife rehabilitation centers, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, game wardens, wildlife conflict agents, animal control officers, and police and fire departments. Sometimes staff at domestic animal shelters, such as the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland, even call for help should a concerned individual reach out to them first, not knowing whom to contact for wildlife.

The myriad species of wildlife Foss rescues include eagles, owls, hawks, raptors, crows, bats, raccoons, squirrels, skunks, coyotes, possums, foxes, porcupines and snapping turtles. Among the issues Foss encounters are wounds — some with severe blood loss, broken or torn limbs, concussions, hypothermia and entanglements.

More than once, Foss has rappelled down cliffs to rescue animals. Several times he has disentangled the talons of two eagles that fought in the air and dropped to the ground. In at least one instance the birds, once separated, were healthy enough to fly away.

The report of the downed bald eagle in Pittston that Foss responded to earlier this winter indicated crows had been dive-bombing the eagle on the ground and it was not defending itself. When Foss arrived, the eagle was gone. Foss believes, based on his experience, the eagle wasn’t injured but rather had wet wings and was temporarily unable to fly. Eagles cannot fly with saturated wings and must wait until they dry.

But when an animal is injured and needs care at one of Maine’s roughly 27 licensed wildlife rehabilitation facilities, a critical part of Foss’s job is stabilizing the animal en route to treatment.

“A key component of transport is packaging the animal to restrict movement, based on the nature of the injury,” Foss explained. “If an animal is too active, it can displace a padded barrier put in place for safe transport and further injure itself.”

A 30-year-plus veteran in the field of human rescue, Foss’s experience in some ways prepared him for the dire conditions in which he finds his animal victims. The big difference is that most injured wildlife are left alone to suffer and die or become easy prey, never receiving the help they need.

An admitted workaholic, Foss, 55, is a former firefighter and EMT, also having worked in law enforcement “on the side” and as a field operations specialist for MEMA (the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency). He was a resource unit leader for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, worked part-time for the Civil Air Patrol, the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary and more.

His attempted retirement occurred in 2016. It didn’t go well. “I always worked 90 hours a week,” Foss said. “Retirement wasn’t right for me. There’s only so much you can do around the house.”

Suffering from PTSD as a result of his prior on-the-job experiences, Foss said working with wildlife gave him a sense of purpose again.

HOW IT ALL STARTED: TOTAL IMMERSION

A lightbulb went on when he saw a Facebook post about an injured raccoon requiring immediate transport to a rehabilitation center. Though untrained, he recognized the need and jumped in. It soon occurred to him there had to be a safer, more organized way to transport injured animals in Maine, which became the incentive behind his transport service. But it went beyond that. “There was a huge need for hands-on help; I changed my mission to add the rescue and stabilization process in getting the animals from point A to point B.”

To learn how to do things properly, Foss dove headlong into volunteering at various wildlife rehab facilities, including nonprofit Saco River Wildlife Center in Limington and Bowdoin-based nonprofit Wilderness Miracles. Founded in 2020 by Kathy McCue, who sometimes accompanies Foss into the field, Wilderness Miracles treated 1,000 animals this year alone, making Foss’ services paramount. Though established wildlife rehabilitation centers generally have a list of volunteer transporters they can call on in emergencies, it’s a roll of the dice that someone is free to do it.

When Foss is available, however, it’s much more than just transportation.

“I met Dan a few years ago,” said McCue. “He was gung-ho about helping wildlife and learned what he could at our center. Just yesterday I got a call about an injured fox in Brunswick and went out with him. We could not find it but at the same time got another call about a red fox in Harpswell, attacked by a dog.” Badly wounded, the animal had sought shelter inside a shed. It took a concerted effort by Foss and McCue to get the fox out of there for treatment at McCue’s facility.

McCue recalled that in early December, an injured raccoon was seen beneath a trailer on an abandoned property in Auburn. “Even before attempting rescue, Dan had to go to unbelievable lengths to get permission to enter the property. He never gave up,” McCue said.

Jen Marchigiani, founder of Auburn-based Misfits Rehab, calls Foss a “rock star.” He began transporting for the organization before he formed his nonprofit, she said, and now “rescues and transports a lot of bats for us. Many people are afraid of bats because of rabies. There’s nothing he’s not willing to do to save a bird or animal. He’s jumped into freezing water in winter to save them.”

Because Foss is licensed by the state of Maine, he can trap, handle and stabilize injured animals, which other transporters typically cannot. Completing animal damage control training in 2021, Foss is now a licensed animal damage control agent for the state.

Among his most challenging pursuits was a 6-month-long rescue on Maine’s Long Island in Casco Bay. A fox had gotten a crab vent from a lobster trap stuck around her neck. “Though it took a long time, all the wonderful people of Long Island rallied and helped me capture this fox,” Foss recalled.

Conditioning the fox to come to one location for feeding, Foss and the residents got close to capturing her, but repeatedly failed. So Foss went out to the island — several miles off Portland and accessible only by boat — and spent nights there never giving up. When finally caught, the fox was taken to Saco River Wildlife Center, where a vet sedated her and cut off the trap. The next morning, Foss took her back out to the island where, as time passed, residents observed her with a mate and new kits.

But not all rescues have such happy endings. “You’ve got to take the bad with the good. It’s part of nature,” Foss said, recollecting a call that came too late to free a skunk from under a shed. The skunk got caught in a fence. Suffering exhaustion after hours of struggling, it lay its head down in a pool of water and drowned. “Sometimes I think I have more trouble dealing with the death of an animal than a person,” Foss confessed. “It may sound cruel, but that’s the way my brain functions.”

The successes help soften the impact of the losses. In October, Foss responded to a homeowner’s call about a barred owl trapped in the family’s chimney for 24 hours. An hourlong struggle ensued to free the bird. The last two minutes are documented in a video on Foss’s LinkedIn page, where he is seen speaking softly to the bird throughout the ordeal, cradling him afterward in his arms.

“I find that talking to many of these animals in a low, calm voice seems to calm them down most of the time — especially birds,” he explained. “If people just take the time to have a one-on-one with most animals, they would see how intelligent and sweet they really are.”

As a result of his nurturing, the owl did not appear stressed, which would have been evident from panting or efforts to escape. “This is the third barred owl I’ve taken out of a chimney this year,” Foss noted. “Chimneys look to these creatures like a good place to nest. It is so important for homeowners to cap them so all this can be avoided.”

When it comes to helping a distressed animal, Foss explained that sometimes a trap must be set. In that case, game cameras are put out to monitor comings and goings. The trap is checked every 24 hours, though triggered photos are immediately transmitted to Foss’s cellphone so he can rush out if an animal has been captured, not leaving it to experience emotional trauma for hours and hours.

However, in the actual case of a red fox with severe mange — a very painful condition — capture was not the first choice. Food was put out near cameras to attract the fox to the site, same as the situation on Long Island. Medication was then placed in the food, and by monitoring the fox’s movements veterinarians involved could be sure he consumed it and was consequently treated.

“In a situation like this it’s much better than stressing it out by capturing it,” Foss explained.

‘DAN’S OUR GUY’

Keel Kemper, regional wildlife biologist for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife, met Foss in 2019 when Foss approached the department about assisting them. “He lasted a few months in retirement and was looking to be involved,” Kemper said. “There’s always been a need for what he does, but the work is long on hours and short on profits. Dan doesn’t charge anyone for anything.”

Because Maine is a very large, rural state, Kemper said, “you always have to drive somewhere. Fish & Wildlife isn’t always capable of driving every critter in need of rehab services. Dan was full of enthusiasm, ideas and exceptional in his willingness to do things the way we asked him to.”

Kemper explained there are standards that must be adhered to when transporting animals to provide for the safety and well-being of the animal, as well as the transporter. “Wildlife is heavily regulated. If you’re going to handle and potentially trap wildlife, we didn’t want to put him (Foss) in any position where it was technically a violation of law. He’s appropriately licensed and permitted.”

Kemper said certain animal welfare groups such as bird-centric Avian Haven have well-oiled volunteer transport registers, but when it comes to rescuing mammals, it’s often left to chance. For that reason, said Kemper, “Dan’s our guy—he’s the only guy.”

Foss is married to clinical social worker Ashley Wilock, whom Foss said “loves what I do.” The couple has a parrot, two dogs and three cats — including a kitten recently obtained from the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland. The kitten was originally stuck in a Portland homeowner’s duct work, and numerous pleas for help to the company that had installed the system reportedly fell on deaf ears. So did pleas to multiple other HVAC companies to help save the kitten.

The Animal Refuge League got involved, reaching out to Foss even though he only works with wildlife. Foss spent two hours figuring out how to safely disassemble the system and reach the kitten. “It’s a shame, because he was suffering and any one of these companies would have known what to do quickly,” Foss said. “He’s is about 13 weeks old now. We adopted him and call him Venti — what else!” Foss quipped.

As a one-man band, so to speak, Foss is compiling a rules and regulations book for volunteers to work with him strictly on the transport side. This would free him to do more rescue and stabilization, which requires licensure, and he can then hand the animal over to a driver. He is also looking for a low-cost grant writer to help grow his nonprofit and find funding for an additional van. Due to excessive mileage, his is sometimes down and in need of costly repairs, meaning he cannot get to an injured animal.

“I consider animals completely innocent,” Foss said. “If we are not here to help them, who is?”

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