Fyffe's Mission is Animal Rescue

Panorama July 13, 1980

The Sunday Herald

By Wendy Anderson

Miles and miles of forest offered hollow trees galore as refuge from the light snow just beginning to fall. The squirrel, tail erect, scampered out of his cage the instant the bars were lifted.

 "What a joy to see that little guy tear," said Garon Fyffe, watching the animal scurry up a frozen streambed and out of sight. Then he released another squirrel, four raccoons and a fat possum in the deeply wooded forest preserve.

 Fyffe, who calls himself a specialist in the humane animal removal and relocation, had rescued all the creatures from attics, chimneys, garages and other places in homes up and down the North Shore.

 "I've always loved animals, and I thought there was a need for my skill," said 39-year-old Fyffe, a former student of environmental geological studies at the University of Illinois. He also has worked for the Illinois Department of Conservation and in nature reserves.

 With nets, metal cages and his gloved hands, Fyffe has made animal removal his full-time occupation for the past four years. In that time, he has removed from homes raccoons, skunks, rabbits, bees, snakes, mice, birds and even bats.

 Why animals end up where they don't belong is easy to explain, said Fyffe. "They're able to survive eating garbage and there's plenty of water around, but the problem is shelter. We're wiping it out. But every house comes equipped with a hollow tree- a chimney. It stands up; it feels warm," said Fyffe. And so animals move in.

 Recently, Fyffe also removed a possum from beneath the tarp on a backyard barbecue, where it had made a nest for winter, and a family of skunks from under a trailer home.

 A call this fall came from a middle-aged woman who insisted she had seen a hairy creature in her piano.

 The mystery turned out to be raccoon, about half-grown. "Evidently a family of coons had been living in her chimney and one had come in the house to look around," said Fyffe. After removing it, he installed a chimney cap to keep the coon from moving in again. Another part of Fyffe's job is animal proofing homes from basements to attics.

 Spring is his busiest time because that's when animals nest. And although most area police and fire departments are aware of him, Fyffe said that few homeowners know where to call for assistance. They call fire or police departments that often give the wrong advice.

 "Someone tells them to start a fire in the chimney and drive them out. It ends up that you burn up the babies. Or you throw ammonia up there and blind them instead."

 Naturally, Fyffe thinks calling him is a far better alternative. And once he's rescued babies from a spot, he keeps them until he can get the mother. If she never shows up, he and his wife Jerilyn hand-feed the babies until they're old enough to be set free.

 Fyffe does not believe that any wild animals should be made into pets. "People take them when they're cute and little, but the problem is that they start to grow up and get habits you don't like."

 At this point, the animals are usually let loose in the woods and since they usually can't fend for themselves, they end up approaching other humans who panic and sometimes kill them.

 Sometimes, to keep animals from hurting themselves or him, Fyffe must use tranquilizers shot from a gun or a blowgun.

 Fyffe's hobbies all have something to do with his job. He's an avid beekeeper, collects insects and studies mushrooms and folk medicine.

 Fyffe said it makes him sad to witness animosity between conservationists and hunters. "Hunters and conservationists should be together fighting developers. They're the ones destroying nature," he said.

 "They measure success only in money, and take a place where the Indians hunted, filled with arrowheads and buffalo bones, bulldoze it, and call it Shangri-La in the Country. They're destroying farmland to make housing that will fall apart before the mortgage is paid."

 Fyffe feels a responsibility to teach youngsters to treasure their environment and gives lectures on nature and animal safety at schools and every summer at Deerfield Safety Town.

 Fyffe's business, ABC Humane Animal Wildlife Removal and Relocation is at 1418 E. Olive Street, Arlington Heights. The number is (847) 870-7175.