The Hope for Wildlife Society’s hosting its ninth open house this Sunday, and Hope Swinimer and the animals are waiting for your visit. “We’ll have the wildlife garden open, the learning centre, the rooftop garden, the flight cage—the only area that’s off limits is the white-tailed deer unit,” says Swinimer, who runs the facility. The wildlife rehabilitation centre has been operating out of Seaforth since its first open house, and helps at least 1,100 to 1,200 birds and mammals every year across the province while working with their own medical team, the Dartmouth Vet Hospital and Metro Animal Emergency Clinic. “It really has grown,” says Swinimer, thinking to her first years running the centre, when an open house meant about 100 people. Two years ago 2,200 people came, and with art displays, demonstrations, pony rides and a barbecue, Swinimer’s hoping for another good turnout. And if the line-up of cars along Highway 207 looks too long, just keep an eye out for the shuttle—there’ll be a van driving along the road, marked “Shuttle,” picking up anyone who flags it down and bringing them to the open house.
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2010.
when you take injured animals out the wilderness,you are denying some other animal food. so by saving injured,orphaned animals you are causing suffering to other animals.not a good thing.let nature run its course.
Typically animals have adapted to finding food in other ways, feeding off injured animals isn’t a consistent source of food. Helping these injured animals is simply a way of giving an animal a second chance, especially when human intervention is usually the reason why the animal is injured in the first place.
quite a few of the animals that are rescued with injuries are those that have been caused by humans (eg. fishing lines & weights swallowed by ducks, swans etc.) therefore its our responsibility to do everything we can to help these injured animals and to try and prevent this from happening again.