MONTANA FISH, WILDLIFE AND PARKS
HELENA – A collaborative
program between the Montana Veterans Affairs Residential Rehabilitation
Treatment Program and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Park’s Montana WILD has earned
national attention and has been proposed as a positive treatment option by the
National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The program
provides veterans with an opportunity to learn about animal rehabilitation and
then to use that experience in the veterans’ own recovery process. Injured and
rehabilitated falcons, owls, eagles, hawks and even turkey vultures from MT
WILD’s Wildlife Center have been used to teach different aspects of recovery,
including patience, recovery plan, natural healing and the power of hope and
positivity.
During the
eight years of the program’s existence, more than 1,000 veterans have
participated. In a 2014 study of the program, veterans were tested on
motivation, feelings of peace, feeling connected to life, enjoying the company
of others, anxiety/stress, ability to focus and feelings of pain before they
started the program at Montana WILD and after they completed it. The study
showed that 70.6 percent of veterans had an overall improvement of these
symptoms, and 30.2 percent had a marked improvement in symptoms.
