Liz Kirchner
communitynews@ourvalley.org
The Radford Public Library is collecting supplies for the Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center of Roanoke throughout the month of February.
In conjunction with the library’s Snuggle with a Book program, Wally, the center’s education squirrel will visit at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, right after story time.
The center and Wally are part of the library’s winter reading program for children ages six and under.
“We’re encouraging kids to read everyday. “Grasslands” is the theme, so we are talking about grassland plants and animals like Wally,” Catherine Fae, the library’s youth programs coordinator said. “It’s a great partnership that supports early literacy by getting kids reading during the cold winter.”
The wildlife center is the kick-off event. Fae said that animal programs are a huge hit, especially with little kids. She said there are usually around 20 children at 11 a.m. story time and then more arrive to see the animals.
“We very much appreciate the partnership,” Sabrina Garvin, executive director of the Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center said. “We bring wildlife ambassadors like Wally that are native to Virginia. The library’s collection is a lot of help. When we do programs, we usually charge fees, but we wave that because the donations help us so much.”
And the center is in perpetual need of supplies and food for the care of injured patients who have lost habitat, been hit by cars, crashed into windows, been battered by cats, or befallen another hard fate.
Cars, cats and windows are hardest on local birds Garvin says. If a bird hits a window where you are, put it in a shoebox and let it rest. Wait an hour and, if it can fly off, it will, but if not, phone the center.
On overcast days, the birds are coming from a pasture; they can only see the pasture reflected in the window and fly right into the glass. There are decals to put on your windows that are clear to people, but not to birds she said.
“You have to put a lot on each window. I like putting little bird feeders in front of windows for the reflection. Birds just don’t see glass,” she said.
Birdseed needs reflect the diversity of the birds and wild animals the center receives. The library is asking for striped sunflower seed, black oil sunflower seed, sunflower heart seed; wild bird seed, no-melt suet cakes; old-fashioned rolled oats, and a variety of wild nuts like acorns, walnuts, hickory nuts with their shells still on for squirrels.
But, while birdseed on the list is not surprising, more remarkable are cotton balls, zip-lock bags, and painter’s tape.
“When we get little neonate mammals you have to stimulate them to defecate,” Garvin said.
Cotton balls tickle the baby perfectly, as close to a Mom as people can get.
“The mother will usually stimulate them with her tongue. And stimulates them to defecate. Most mammals with their eyes closed need that,” she said.
Garvin started rehabilitating animals from her house in 2000. Soon, she established the effort as a nonprofit, and it grew. They built a place next door to the house, but the center outgrew that, now they are funded by donations and grants.
“Right now we have 20 patients. This is our slow season. In the summer, we have 90-100. The center cared for 1859 patients last year. In the spring and summer they’ve lost their habitat, fallen out of nest, or a tree was cut down,” Garvin said.
“They have to be kept warm and given the proper nutrition – there are special diets for each mammal.”
This specialized treatment the center provides requires knowledge, supplies and a lot of soap. Washing seven loads of laundry, towels and cage mats every day, the center needs plastic bags and painter’s tape for labeling special mixes of diets required by different animals.
“For possum, we make a huge batch of meat, vegetables and fruit. We go through blue painter’s tape like crazy. When we make fruit-plates, one animal might eat more fruit. We use a lot of kale. That’s a substitute for buds on a tree (robins go to the tops of trees to eat the winter buds) We’ve got it down to a science. We label each plate and we come in every morning and can just grab a plate.”
Downy woodpeckers diets are 75 percent insects and 25 percent plant, a scarlet tanager (a blood-red song bird with black wings that migrates through Virginia’s summer woods) need more insects 90 percent, and 10 percent plant.
Bird species each have special diets too and they change with the season.
“A wren eats a lot of insects and can’t handle seed in the summer. When there are no insects, they prefer peanut heart and sunflower hearts. Their gut flora changes and they adapt to having no insects,” she said. “Feeding and cleaning and treating that’s what we do all day.”
Grateful for the donations on which the center relies, volunteers to help transport injured animals to the center are needed in Giles, Montgomery and Bland counties.
Donations needed are:
Striped sunflower seed; black oil sunflower seed; sunflower heart seed; wild bird seed; no-melt suet cakes; old-fashioned rolled oats; variety of wild nuts in shells (acorns, walnuts, hickory nuts); cotton balls; paper towels; tissues (no aloe or lotion); high efficiency laundry detergent; trash bags (39 and 55 gallon); zip type plastic freezer storage bags (quart and gallon size); white printer paper; blue painter’s tape; heating pads without automatic cut off; large clear plastic storage bins with locking lids.
For more information visit www.radfordva.gov/630/About-the-Library or phone (540) 731-3621. For the Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center, visit www.swvawildlifecenter.org.
