The Wildlife In Need Center education department is very busy scheduling Educational programs for the 2015 calendar year. Since we are preparing for a very busy year of educating the nearby communities about interacting with their local wildlife, we are happy to announce that Alex Lemmer has joined our education team as a Wildlife Educator! Alex started at WINC as a summer volunteer in 2011. She then completed an animal care internship here throughout the summer and fall of 2014. She has a degree in Environmental Science with an emphasis in Wildlife Conservation from Carthage College. She also plans to continue working towards her Basic Wisconsin Wildlife Rehabilitator license. We are so happy to have Alex on board! If you are interested in scheduling an educational program and meeting Alex in person, please contact our Wildlife Education Coordinator at 262-965-3090 or lkiehl@helpingwildlife.org; to learn more information about our education mission, visit our Educate page. Alex, working with Sova, our educational Barred Owl, at a WINC Meet & Greet...
February can be a very rough time for native Wisconsin wildlife; the bitter cold temperatures and snow cover can make staying warm and finding food a difficult endeavor even for the most hearty native species. Many of the animals that Wildlife In Need admits during this time of the year are underweight and weak, oftentimes making them easily approachable by concerned individuals. To help wildlife in your yard stay healthy through the rest of this winter, here are some easy things you can do: Offer a water source. Heated bird baths provide an open water source for birds and other wildlife. Keep your feeders stocked! High energy feeds, like black oil sunflower and suet, can give birds the extra fat content they need to get through those bitter cold days. Disinfect your feeders and bird baths weekly with a 10% bleach solution and rinse thoroughly. Diseases, like conjunctivitis, can spread more readily in winter because bird feeders are more populated when food is scarce. (To learn more about conjunctivitis, click here.) If you find an animal that seems to need WINC’s help to make it through the winter, please give us a call at (262) 965-3090. Though some of our educational ambassadors have to be moved inside during these frosty temperatures, Dakota, the Great Horned Owl, is in his...
The Wildlife In Need Center frequently receives calls from people that found bats in their homes or buildings. Due to the threat of possible rabies transmission, these calls are always handled with extreme caution and care by our staff; whether or not the bat in question simply needs to make its way outside or needs our rehabilitators help. Besides rabies, the spread of the White-nose Syndrome disease also effects how we admit and care for our bat patients. This disease is caused by a deadly fungus which causes hibernating bats to frequently wake, depleting their energy and causing them to starve and dehydrate or die of exposure before the end of winter. The infection does not affect people or other animal species, but has a detrimental impact on cave bat populations – so much so that bats in Wisconsin have been placed on the Threatened Species list. Wildlife rehabilitators in our state must follow strict quarantine protocols to help the spread of this disease while bats are being rehabilitated. Here at Wildlife In Need we are very thankful that we have a good relationship with staff at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center at Wisconsin Humane Society who we transfer our bats to for more long-term rehab and overwintering. To learn more about this disease, and how you can help our bat populations, follow this link: https://www.whitenosesyndrome.org/ Also, Wisconsin’s DNR recently put out a press release about this disease spreading in Wisconsin: http://dnr.wi.gov/news/Weekly/Article/?id=3188 A female Silver-haired bat that was recently admitted to our Center (finishing up her breakfast of mealworms)....
The Wildlife In Need Center is extremely grateful for the support we received in the past year from foundations, business partners and the community. We want to recognize the following foundations and corporations for their generous contributions in the past year to the mission of the Wildlife In Need Center: Action Graphics Greater Milwaukee Foundation Arthur T. Anderson Family Fund Dean L. and Rosemarie Buntrock Foundation The Business Journal Delafield Community Foundation D.R.E.A.M. Fund (Schwab Charitable Fund) Emil Ewald Family Foundation Jerome and Dorothy Holz Family Foundation Joseph R. Pabst Fund Northwestern Mutual Foundation ORBIS Oconomowoc Community Action Team Pearson Family Foundation Peterson Family Foundation Quarles & Brady ROS Foundation Standard Process Inc. Winter, Kloman, Moter, & Repp, S.C. Thank you – in 2014 your generous donations and grants allowed us to: Admit and care for over 2,581 sick, injured or orphaned wildlife covering 132 species Field over 10,000 phone calls to assist the community with questions regarding Wisconsin wildlife Present 116 quality education programs reaching over 25,000 people Provide hands on experience to 10 college interns who seek employment in a wildlife related field Provide fulfilling and unique volunteer opportunities for over 120 adult volunteers (in animal care, office, and education fields) and almost 100 baby bird feeders (a majority of which were youth ages 12-18) Receive Creative Child Magazine’s, “2014 Preferred Choice Award” for WINC’s book on Wisconsin’s environment – Connecting with Wisconsin Wildlife Introduce to the public our newest educational ambassador – a captive bred bull snake (an endangered species in Wisconsin) Transform WINC’s outdoor environment by planting native plants to feed and provide nesting sites...
