Terry Pulver has nurtured everything from orphaned beavers to bullet-riddled bald eagles for more than two decades on her northeastern North Dakota farm.

Pulver, who has little formal veterinary training, claims to have better than an 80 percent success rate of healing wild critters and releasing them back to the wild.

"I was raised on a farm," said Pulver, 54, of Mountain. "It's in my genes."

Pulver was one of two people in North Dakota given permission to possess wild animals for rehabilitation. Last spring, she says, the state Game and Fish Department denied the permission.

"They told me even if I get a bunny with a broken leg - which I could easily mend - that I have to turn it away," Pulver said. She says she's had to turn away dozens of injured animals over the past few months.

But the publicity about her plight has prompted the Game and Fish Department to reconsider.

"We are taking another look at it to see if we're being fair," state Game and Fish Department deputy director Roger Rostvet said.

At issue is the question of how much of a rule humans should have in the fate of wild animals.

"From a biologist point of view, it's fairly easy: Let nature take its course," Rostvet said. "But then there is human nature, and that is to nurture things. So this has evoked emotion in people."

Rostvet said wild animals sometimes become dependent on humans during the rehabilitation.

"We are trying to keep wild things wild," he said.

Rostvet has planned a meeting this week with Pulver and retired veterinarian Katherine Day, who tends to injured wildlife in the Devils Lake area.

"We're tying to get a handle on how many they bring in, and how we can adopt some standards in North Dakota," Rostvet said.

Without wildlife rehabilitators, Pulver said, people will take it upon themselves to nurse sick or injured animals, which is more dangerous to people and the animals.

"We hope they will understand where we are coming from and that we need this," she said. "Our purpose is just getting the animals well and releasing them back to where they were found."

Wild animal rehabilitation is a fairly new phenomenon, dating back just 30 or so years, said Elaine Thrune, a board member of the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association in St. Cloud, Minn.

At present, there are thousands of wildlife rehabilitators nationwide, and courses are now being taught at some universities, she said. North Dakota is one of a handful of states with no licensing or permitting process, she said.

"Some have very simple regulations, and others have much more comprehensive regulations," she said. "Each state is basically different."

Thrune, a former wildlife rehabilitation, said her group supports permitting or licensing by states to allow qualified people to take in sick, injured or orphaned animals with the intent of releasing them back to the wild.

Day, the retired veterinarian in Devils Lake, got written permission from the late Dean Hildebrand, the former director of the Game and Fish Department, to tend to wild animals, Rostvet said. Zoos in Bismarck, Minot and Wahpeton have similar permission, he said

Pulver had only verbal permission from past directors, Rostvet said. The department now wants to take a look at the process, he said.

Day, who has been tending to injured animals for more than 30 years, said the state needs more wildlife rehabilitators. She has seen an increase of human-caused injuries to non-game animals, especially from gunfire.

"This is not about a coyote grabbing and hurting a little bunny," Day said. "This is mostly because of deliberate human interaction.

"The ideal thing is not to have these animals. But because of accidents or acts of maliciousness by humans, we will," Day said. "You can't just sit there and let them die. I'm sorry, that's not an option. We have a duty and obligation to these animals."

Pulver started tending wild animals 22 years ago with her late husband, Charles, a former Game and Fish Department game warden who came across injured animals that either were left to die or were euthanized, she said.

"It broke his heart, so he started this idea, knowing that I was softhearted, too," Pulver said.

Some of her funding has come from donations, though most of her work is "out-of-pocket," she said.

People have brought her everything from injured worms to battered butterflies, she said.

Sometimes there is nothing that can be done for a critter that has been too badly injured.

"I do a lot of euthanasia," she said. "I don't let anything suffer that is too far gone."

Of the thousands of successes, a few stand out, especially Billie the beaver, she said. The young orphaned beaver potty trained herself using the toilet in Pulver's home, and built makeshift dams using anything around the farm, including rugs and rakes, Pulver said.

"When she got about 50 pounds, she left on her own," Pulver said.

Pulver later spotted the beaver that once lived in her basement in a pond a few miles away.

"There was Billie with a new dam and a new mate, Billy Boy," she said. "It was awesome."