(rdnewsNOW file photo)

By Sheldon Spackman and Troy Gillard

tough times

Medicine River Wildlife Centre sees dramatic funding drop during COVID-19 pandemic

Apr 6, 2020 | 5:49 PM

A central Alberta facility providing care for injured, orphaned or compromised wildlife is dealing with a major drop in revenue amidst the COVID-19 global health pandemic.

Carol Kelly, executive director at the Medicine River Wildlife Centre (MRWC) near Spruce View, says they’ve lost their three main sources of funding because of the pandemic.

“We don’t have tourism, all of our education programs have cancelled, and our casino in Calgary, which is one of our main fundraisers, is also cancelled,” laments Kelly. “So our funding has depleted dramatically, and a number of our interns that come here and live and work are not going to be able to be here, so the workload is going to be left to the core staff which is going to be a little bit interesting.”

The pandemic, however, hasn’t stopped the amount of injured or orphaned wildlife coming into the centre, at least so far, says Kelly.

“We still have birds coming in that are caught on barbed wire or hit by a vehicle,” she explains. “But this time of year is not our busy season, we start to really ramp-up in May, and then June, July and August are insane. Then it starts to ramp-down a little bit after that.”

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Kelly says there busy season on-average, sees 15-25 new patients every day, with many of those being baby animals that need to be fed. She says people can help by minimizing potential animal hazards around their yards for example.

“One of the things that we’re doing this year is we’re saying, if you want to help the Wildlife Centre and you want to help yourself and you want to help wildlife in general, starting today, we’re going to put a series of things out on Facebook to help people minimize the damage,” says Kelly. “Doing walk-arounds your yard. We’re going to give you a list of things to watch for and to cover up, so that you can get rid of the hazards in your yard.”

Kelly hopes with provincial parks and campgrounds being closed and people mandated to stay home during the pandemic, the number of patients they receive will be reduced proportionately.

“With less people moving around and less vehicles on the road, there’s a good chance we’ll have that,” she suggests. “This is why we’re going to focus on things in your own backyard.”

Kelly hopes information provided to the public through their series of Facebook posts beginning Apr. 6, will benefit both people and animals.

“If you have a travel trailer or motorhome, that sort of thing, many of them have trailer hitches and little holes where things go,” she points out. “We have always a large number of people who call us and go, ‘Oh my Lord, I’ve just driven 500 kilometres and I found a nest of baby birds in the trailer hitch or in the hole inside of my motorhome,’” says Kelly.

“So we’re asking people to go outside and have a look at those kinds of things and stuff a rag in there, stop them from nesting there, cover it over with mesh or whatever is going to work better in your case.”

This week is National Wildlife Week in Canada.