A wildlife rescue and rehab facility based in Summerland is bracing for animals to need help earlier than normal this year.
Interior Wildlife, the first permitted wildlife rehabilitation centre in the Okanagan north of Oliver, opened last June as a place for injured wildlife to get peace and quiet to recover.
Most recently, the centre has cared for a western grebe from this year, after it crash landed during the cold-snap.
Eva Hartmann, executive director of IWRS Summerland, said due to recent changes in climate and extreme temperature fluctuations, seasons are shifting and hibernating wildlife wakes up earlier.
“Confused by the non-availability of plants and insects to feed on this early, some came into care already,” she added.
In the world of wildlife rehabilitation, where climate change affects the local ecosystem and floods and wildfire hit the area, animal care facilities like Interior Wildlife feel these impacts directly by receiving more wild patients earlier in the year.
“On top of that, more housing developments for humans means less space for wildlife in the Okanagan. More often than not, this comes with an unwillingness by some locals to share our neighbourhoods with wild animals. Predators are villanized and rodents are labelled as unwanted pests,” Hartmann said.
She said there are still people that care.
“The support of our amazing communities allowed us to answer nearly 1,000 public inquiries about potential wildlife in need of human care or veterinary assessment in 2023. Our patients’ intake numbers have also increased by a third.”
Interior Wildlife said they admitted 93 patients last year, including displaced bats, injured beavers, porcupines and swans, as well as waterfowl unable to be raised in the wild as their parents had been killed by vehicle collisions.
The society’s annual fundraiser Wild About Spring is scheduled for May 17. A goal of the fundraising event is to help the society purchase a portable X-ray machine.
More details about the event and auction will be announced soon on the society’s website and social media. For more information on Interior Wildlife’s operations and how to support the society, head to its website, here.
