Vet forbidden to reveal whether injured wildlife lived or died?

In My Humble Opinion
1

TL;DR version: Not “is it,” but “why is it” illegal for the vet to tell me whether injured wildlife survived?

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I heard noises that led me to a fledgling cardinal being attacked by a cat. The little cardinal (I have no idea what sex, but I’m arbitrarily considering her female…at least her coloring looked female to me, she had a lot of olive mixed in with a dull reddish hue) was wounded and bleeding.

I saved her from the cat and took her in. The side of her face was torn up and bloody; she also had a puncture wound under one wing. She may have had other injuries I failed to detect, of course. It being a holiday evening after supper, I did not expect (nor did I receive) a callback from the three wildlife rehabilitators and one hotline I had called.

I know you’re not supposed to do anything to treat them, the state wildlife (Virginia) and rehabber websites said as much; but infections from cat bites are extremely dangerous to birds, and no one was going to answer me until at least the next morning. It looked like her survival was up to me.

So I cleaned such wounds as I could find lightly, and set her up in a bird carrier with a soft cloth nest, water, a humid environment, and warmth (shower steam). By the next morning she was at least somewhat active, calling and hopping about in the carrier, despite a bloody flap of skin hanging down the side of her face.

Eventually I did get a callback and was directed to a local exotics vet we’ve dealt with before (I used to take my pet parrots there). I drove her there, filled out a change-of-custody form, and left her in their care. The vet would decide whether to treat her or euthanize. The little cardinal seemed to be growing more physically capable and mobile; I hope that means she was recovering.

So today I called back. I have no intention of interfering in her rehabilitation; I ONLY wanted to ask, “did she live?” I am inclined to think she did, solely because she seemed to be active and alert.

“It is against the law for us to tell you if she lived or not,” the vet tech told me. “We can generalize about how these cases might typically go, but are not allowed to tell you anything about the specific animal.”

OK, I can live with that. But why? The vet deals with the rescue and rehab people; the name and address of whoever actually might have custody of the animal are already hidden from me. What conceivable purpose does it serve to not tell me the animal’s fate? Whose privacy is protected? What potential harm to animals does this law prevent?

It took me by surprise – especially considering another vet cheerfully told us of the (happy) fate of a snapping turtle we had brought in (who had been hit by a car, but recovered). (Not complaining that “they told us last time;” I can imagine that this law might, for example, be specific to songbirds.)

Any thoughts or guesses what’s going on here and what greater good is being served?

Having had my knuckles mildly rapped by petty bureaucracy is not deterring me from keeping my fingers crossed for the little bird, at least!

2

I’m not a vet or a lawyer, so I am admittedly speculating and will happily retract if someone more knowledge comes along. That being said, I can think of three possibilities:

1 - it’s not actually illegal, but if someone is told “it’s against the law”, they stop calling a lot more readily than “we don’t know, now leave us alone”.

2 - The law that protects reasonable data about rescues, like who is rehabbing the bird, is overbroad and forbids all data about the bird in question.

3 - Some high percentage of the time, the correct thing to do is euthanize the animal anyway, and if the vet tells you “yea, we killed tweety”, they end up with angry animal rights activists, so being forbidden to say one way or the other is a way of keeping the PETA wackos from protesting on their front stoop.

3

Hipaa

4

I think for animals it’s Hipoo

5

They hadn’t notified next of kin yet.

6

It’s the Cardinal rule. :smack:

7

That sounds ridiculous to me. I’ve a history working in vet clinics and also did some time working at a wildlife rehab center. If this were a case of you calling in to check the status of your friend’s injured animal then, yes it’s illegal for them to go into details regarding their pet. But for wildlife? That just sounds made up. Now, I’m not saying they were 100% lying/misinformed, but I’ve never heard of such a law before. More than likely the vet tech was assuming that the law regarding other peoples’ pets would apply to wildlife as well.

8

You probably talked to a receptionist who didn’t get the instructions right. They don’t want to tell you it was euthanized, the person just told you that it was the law to make it sound like they couldn’t tell you but I don’t think there is any law that they can’t. Many times, with a domestic pet that is surrendered, we do tell them that we will not release information after the surrender but that’s mostly to keep the (some) wackos from second guessing the decisions later but I don’t think injured wildlife has the same issue unless you get an extreme idiot.

9

I took a hit-by-car (not mine!) turtle 75 miles to the local rehab place. They readily told my a couple weeks later that the turtle didn’t make it.

StG

10

I assume you’re joking, but lest anyone become confused HIPAA applies only to human patients.