A crow wants to say hello at Wildlife Haven open house

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This article was published 14/09/2023 (472 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rare is the chance to be greeted by a crow.

Animal ambassador Jet the crow, who enthusiastically says hello to visitors at the Wildlife Haven Rehabilitation Centre, is ready along with all his animal and human friends to welcome people to their fourth-ever open house this Friday and Saturday.

With 300 wild animals at a time taking up residence in the Ile des Chênes facility, things are too hectic in the summer for tours. But now that many of the babies turned in this spring have been sent back into the wild, these two days are the best chance to see animals normally seen from a distance up close and personal.

Jet, along with friends like Bruce the snake, Elliot the turtle, and R2 the red-tailed hawk, are also looking to hawk some merchandise. New shirts and other wares are being brought in, along with raffle prizes, Bombers tickets, and a fishing kayak to be won.

“There are a lot of purposes for this open house. Number one it’s awesome for people to come here and get a chance to see what we do in person,” said fundraising coordinator Kelly O’Donnell.

People who book online at wildhaven.ca or call the centre at 204-878-3740 get a look behind the scenes where a full-time veterinarian, staff and volunteers have taken care of nearly 2,000 animals from 168 species so far this year alone.

With those numbers, the other purpose of the open house is to recruit volunteers and fundraise.

“It means so much for us, and goes such a long way for us. But the people who are donating don’t always get to see the direct impact they’re making, whereas we get to see the raccoon that gets its leg healed; we get to see that bird get released and fly off into the woods. It’s a really meaningful thing,” said O’Donnell.

Once here, along with the tour, there will be kids games.

And the more tame animal ambassadors who can get up close represent a wide variety of the Manitoba-native species Wildlife Haven help. The ambassadors live at the facility because they cannot be returned to the wild after imprinted contact with humans, severe injuries or risk of disease to other animals.

“We use them for education purposes,” said O’Donnell.

“They are good examples of different stories on how animals arrive here. They have a good lesson in each of them on how we can co-exist with wildlife in Manitoba,” she added.

How they arrive here will soon be through the Winnipeg Zoo.

Three weeks ago, a memorandum was signed with the zoo that includes a drop-off place for people who found injured animals and cannot make the trip out to Ile des Chênes.

Zoo staff are now also helping Wildlife Haven’s rehab vet with animals.

“An example of this partnership is we had a raccoon that was injured at our facility, had a broken leg. We didn’t have all the materials that we needed, so our veterinarian for the first week was trying all different kinds of wraps on its leg. But you can imagine with a baby raccoon what’s it going to do with a wrap on its leg: it’s going to rip it off a hundred different times,” explained O’Donnell.

They contacted the zoo, and got the casting material needed to hold up against the little raccoon’s teeth.

“It’s going to be released this week,” said O’Donnell, adding all 30 raccoons they had this summer were now being released in small batches.

Volunteers are the driving force in retrieval and releases.

Judi Grout described working there since it was in an old dairy barn eight years ago. She knew about it after hearing 911 calls for injured wildlife asking her and other members of the Winnipeg Police Service to help.

“Red fox rehabilitation is my passion and I have done a lot of research and developed a professional relationship with two other red fox rehabs in the UK and also the USA who do strictly red foxes. I have learned so much and updated our protocols every year. The thing I am most proud of is the soft release program that I have coordinated the past four years. Previously, our fox patients were hard-released in a proper habitat but not where they originated, as that often wasn’t possible. I worried they would be confused for days, not knowing where they were or where their home base was and wouldn’t have the opportunity to hunt. Having a soft-release site has improved their transition from patient to wild and free animal exceptionally,” wrote Grout.

Grout now helps train new volunteers.

Wildlife Haven was started in 1984 as Manitoba Wildlife Rehabilitation Organization by a group of concerned citizens. It grew out of their backyards into the University of Manitoba’s Glenlea Research Station in 1993. In 2003, it started operating as the Wildlife Haven Rehabilitation Centre and in 2008 moved to a retired dairy barn in Ile des Chênes.

In 2019, it finally moved to its own newly-built home on Arnould Road.

It will also now have even more space for the thousands of animals coming through each year after the Province provided sea cans this summer that had been used for social distancing at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.