They Share a Natural Connection

A river otter learned to swim in the bathtub of their Grafton home.

That’s what happens when a wildlife rehabilitator and a Mass Wildlife official share a life, a family _ and a love for the natural world.

Bill and Dianne Davis of Grafton spend their days studying, managing and caring for wildlife.

He is the central district supervisor for Massachusetts Fisheries and Wildlife, based in West Boylston.

She is a wildlife veterinary technician for the Ecotarium in Worcester.

And when they get home, one of their favorite things to do is to savor the wildlife they spend their days managing.

“We like to sit in our backyards and think how lucky we are,’’ Dianne said. “And then a Cooper’s hawk flies by.’’

Although she spent some of her childhood living in the decidedly urban Tatnuck area of Worcester, Dianne has been fascinated by wildlife since a childhood visit from a Massachusetts Audubon speaker at her school.

The speaker talked about her work banding monarch butterflies. Dianne, intrigued, told the speaker she had monarchs at home. The speaker visited Dianne’s home, taught the youngster how to band the butterflies and sparked a lifelong fascination with the study of natural life.

Dianne soon began keeping cats, snakes and even squirrels, which she stresses is now illegal. “My mother was very tolerant of the animals I brought home,’’ she said, smiling.

She became a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and falconer. She now cares for the animals at the Ecotarium, including the river otter kit she taught to swim in her bathtub. The river otter still chirps at her, in a way a river otter does to its mother, when she walks by its enclosure.

Clearly, she does more than provide food and water. Using a stick, a clicking sound and a food treat, she taught a Sanannah monitor lizard to walk onto a scale, which helps when it comes to providing medical care to the lizard.

“Dianne can train anything,’’ Bill said with a laugh

She offers some basic care; more serious medical work is done at

Bill is no stranger to wildlife himself. He was raised in Holden and loved spending time at his family cottage in New Hampshire. “I was the kid who was always in the canoe, catching frogs,’’ he said.

As a student at Dawson Elementary School, he also was inspired by a visit by someone from Mass Audubon. The visitor took the class to the school’s backyard, spotted a clump of leaves in a tree and gently shook the tree until squirrels poked their heads out of the nest.

“I said, Wow, that was amazing,’’ she said.

He has since graduated to banding eagles and attracting ospreys to nesting poles, among the many projects he has tackled. “It’s still amazing,’’ he said.

He studied environmental science at Middlebury College and, after graduating in 1981, approached Fisheries and Wildlife about a job.

He secured a position as a laborer for a federal conservation program and, 30 years later, has worked to way up to central district supervisor.

It was perhaps inevitable that Bill and Dianne would meet. And unless some couples, they bonded not over coffee or at family gatherings but while working with bald eagles.

Together, working on the Eagle Project, they helped take eagle chicks from nests in Nova Scotia, where bald eagles were plentiful. They raised the chicks from the age of six weeks on artificial nests before eventually releasing them in the Quabbin Reservoir in the mid-1980s.

Since those first eagles were released in the mid-1980s, the eagle population has soared in Massachusetts. Today, there are 32 nesting pairs in the state.

“It’s very likely we’ll see eagles nesting in the Blackstone Valley in the near future,’’ he said.

And no couple will be happier to see that than Bill and Dianne Davis.

“When we see a bald eagle or an osprey, we just smile and say, We’re so lucky to be a part of this,’’ he said.