Nature

At the same time, too often it is human activity that directly or inadvertently sends animals to the Center. Free-roaming cats exact a steady toll; in 2009 alone, 222 animals were brought to the Center after being attacked by cats, and many of these could not be saved due to severe infections caused by bacteria carried on the cats’ teeth. Collisions with trucks and cars last year brought 127 cases to the Center. Lawn mowers, pesticides and lead poisoning (typically from lead shot in the remains of animals left in the field during hunting season) cause their share of damage as well. Nineteen patients in 2009, including two bald eagles, had been shot. And 324 animals in 2009 were what the Center calls “kidnap victims”—young animals such as deer fawn or fledgling birds that well-meaning citizens bring to the Center, having mistakenly concluded that the animals have been abandoned by their parents. One focus of the Center’s educational efforts, then, is to help the general public learn how to be good stewards of the natural world, which includes knowing when to leave well enough alone, knowing that the fledgling bird is testing its wings or that the fawn discovered behind your azalea has been hidden there intentionally by its mother, who will return for it later.

Still, it is often ordinary citizens who make the effort to get genuinely injured or ailing animals to the Center for care. And it is people who help support the Center with the financial and in-kind contributions without which it could not survive. Every young bear that ambles off into the woods with a second chance at life, every eagle that flies free again, and every toad that hops back into his home healthy and healed does so thanks to the Center’s many donors. “We never forget that the only reason our organization exists is because people support us with their hard-earned money,” says Ed Clark. “We are big enough to literally have an impact worldwide and small enough that every single donation makes a difference.”

Mr. Dodo would like to say thanks.

Spring and summer are busy seasons at the Wildlife Center. If you find an animal you think needs help, contact the Center for guidance. Telephone numbers for the Center and for area wildlife rehabilitators, as well as specific advice for some of the more common calls the Center receives, can be found at WildlifeCenter.org