(Supplied/Deana McNeish)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

decades in the making

Medicine River Wildlife Centre opens new hospital at long last

Oct 24, 2020 | 12:35 PM

A very long and exhausting, but ultimately rewarding journey is over for the Medicine River Wildlife Centre (MRWC).

The centre’s new hospital, which has been built over several years at an approximate cost of $1.3 million is finished, functional and saving the lives of many, many patients. Team members celebrated this past week with a virtual grand opening.

Executive Director Carol Kelly shares that they’ve treated about 2,300 patients in 2020, returning a record high 68 per cent of patients back to the wild

“We are a wildlife hospital and education centre. The hospital takes in injured, orphaned and compromised wildlife with the goal of keeping them wild, not friendly,” says Kelly of the MRWC’s mission. “The education program is aimed at teaching people how to better understand wildlife, and how to live better with them while minimizing damage, which is most of the time accidental.”

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Last spring, central Albertans stuck at home with more time to take on home projects because of the pandemic, called the wildlife centre in droves seeking help, and as usual, Kelly’s team came through.

A baby falcon in care this year at the Medicine River Wildlife Centre. (Supplied/Deana McNeish)

“People were cutting trees down without looking at them first. We had oodles of falcons, squirrels, chickadees and robins whose homes were being destroyed. In some cases, we’d rebuild a makeshift home for them, but we also found ourselves with incubators full of tiny robin eggs,” Kelly recalls. “When they hatch, they’re itty-bitty and need to be fed every 20 minutes. We put the word out asking if people had robins nesting in their yard, and we were then able to run these babies out to nests around central Alberta.”

Among the new 3,500 square foot hospital’s many features are self-contained rooms, each outfitted with its own vacuum and sink, there is a sizeable quarantine room, as well as a large sink area to deal with oiled animals. An air exchange system will prevent the spread of disease and bacteria, and precast concrete walls will not absorb the many odours tracked in by wildlife like the old 1,500 square foot hospital did.

“It’s also mouseproof,” quips Kelly, who’s been at the helm of the MRWC since it opened in 1989.

“We got $60,000 from the government toward the $1.3 million cost, the work crew we had for years from Bowden Institution saved us about $250,000 in labour costs, we had Dorothy and Ruth Bower step in as major supporters, along with people like my husband who did a lot of construction work this year. We thank the numerous people in the community who have donated, large or small.”

New cages at the wildlife centre are constructed with much more durable and practical materials. (Supplied)

Kelly hopes that the Medicine River Wildlife Centre will be able to welcome visitors back inside its Spruce View-area interpretive centre, as well as hold a true grand opening, in spring 2021.

Meantime, they also hope to ramp up education efforts over the coming months after they were somewhat bogged down by the COVID-19 pandemic. More donations would also be helpful to help the MRWC complete a new $164,000 raptor enclosure, and they’re looking for about $1,000 to finish producing a video education program they plan to eventually put on YouTube.

The centre will also be launching a new website in the near future.