Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre

Young marmot being syringe fed
Image courtesy of BCWP Staff

The BC Wildlife Park's Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre is specialized as a facility dedicated to mammals, birds of prey, amphibians, reptiles and endangered species.

The Society has the only licensed Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre in the Kamloops Region. Staff and volunteers work closely with the Ministry of Environment (MOE) as well as community partners to provide rehabilitation services to injured and orphaned wildlife in the region. Wildlife that are successfully rehabilitated are released back into the wild preferably to the area they were found.

Saw whet owl fledgling, Summer 2009
Image courtesy of BCWP Staff

The Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre also incorporates a valuable partnership with Thompson Rivers University (TRU) - Animal Health Technology Program (AHT). This program is unique in the province and one of the few of its kind in Canada that prepares students for careers as Animal Health Technicians. Students assist at the BC Wildlife Park in providing very high level of veterinary care, and students learn many aspects of their course requirements while participating in animal health and wildlife rehabilitation at the Park.

Our intake number for 2006 was 139 animals. The summer of 2007 saw an unusual intake of five rattlesnakes. The Park held them until the fall when they were released to another den site. One of the snakes had babies while it was at the Park and the surviving young were also released. Relocating snakes is a difficult project so it was gratifying that the Park could assist MOE with this problem.

        

Juvenille western rattlesnake, Summer 2007
Image courtesy of BCWP Staff

This year saw the Park take in 11 deer fawns. Nine of them survived and 8 will be released this spring. The Park has kept one of the fawns as it was too people friendly to release. Most of these fawns have not come from the Kamloops area but from surrounding communities, as far away as Prince George and Kelowna.

Each summer the Park and the Ministry send out media information about orphaned wildlife, especially deer fawns. Many of the deer fawns brought to the Park are not truly orphaned. The mother has simply left the fawn to hide while she is away feeding. Because of the lowered numbers of fawns being brought in from the Kamloops area we feel this message is being listened to. We now need to get the message out to other interior communities. Public education is one of the most useful tools in effective wildlife rehabilitation. We use the Park staff and volunteers, the Media, special interest groups and related Government Departments to deliver this information

 

Deer fawn 2009
Image courtesy of BCWP Staff

We would like to thank the Conservation Officers and the Biologists at the local Ministry of Environment Office for all of their help with our Rehab program