Author: admin
Finch conjunctivitis requires isolation, too
April 8, 2020[caption id="attachment_271348" align="alignnone" width="576"] A recent patient, an American Goldfinch, with conjunctivitis.[/caption]
Wildlife rehabilitators are well aware of the potential for disease transmission between humans and wildlife as well as between individual animals- it is a calculated risk we take in the course of our daily work.
For example, we routinely practice isolation and quarantine in the wildlife clinic when we admit an animal with a contagious disease such as finch conjunctivitis, as was the case with this female American goldfinch. She arrived in early March with both her eyes so swollen and crusted she could hardly see. She needed…
Cooper’s Hawk Rehabilitation
April 1, 2020
This beautiful juvenile Cooper’s hawk was brought to the Wildlife Clinic in late February after being found on the side of a busy highway. Thanks to the quick actions of a kind rescuer, he was able to receive prompt attention, including treatment for head trauma and surgery to repair a wound on his chest. When he arrived, he was not even able to stand, as shown in the first picture. But after nearly 4 weeks of healing, and some recovery time in our flight cage, he was successfully released on March 17th.
It is because of the quick thinking and…
Saying goodbye to our patients
March 27, 2020[caption id="attachment_271325" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Flying squirrel 19-1849 receiving a feeding[/caption]
It’s hard to say goodbye to patients who have been with us for a long time, and this flying squirrel was cared for at the Wildlife Clinic for 129 days!
Last November we received 2 baby flying squirrels, both with their eyes still closed. They had been found in an attic, and unfortunately the finder was not willing to attempt to reunite them with their mother. Both babies were thin, dehydrated, and hypothermic on arrival, and sadly one little squirrel didn’t make it. We were able to help this little…
The Schuylkill Center’s Forest is Open for Business!
March 16, 2020[caption id="attachment_271309" align="alignnone" width="3024"] Photo Credit: Jerome Eno[/caption]
By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
Like almost every institution in the region and every school in the state, the Schuylkill Center closed our Visitor Center last week in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our Nature Preschool closed for two weeks, and we canceled all programming through the end of the month.
Our Wildlife Clinic on Port Royal Avenue, however, remains open, taking your injured, orphaned and sick creatures. Our staff there, some of the hardest working people you’ll ever meet, are practicing social distancing and enhanced sanitizing to keep both you and them…
A Climate Striker Laments, “We Had to Stop our Education to Teach you a Lesson”
March 2, 2020By Mike Weilbacher and Cyan Cuthbert '23
On September 20, 2019, millions of people-- most of them school-age children-- engaged in a climate strike, leaving work or school to protest the lack of adult action on climate change. Looking for a student’s perspective on the issue, I approached Roxborough’s acclaimed Saul High School to find a student who might have participated in the climate strike at City Hall.
Assistant principal Gabriel Tuffs steered me to Cyan Cuthbert, a 14-year-old freshman who lives in Germantown. She elected to leave school that day to join the millions of kids across the planet…
Wildlife In Winter – When Things get Rough
February 5, 2020By Rebecca Michelin, Director of Wildlife Rehabilitation
With “baby season” for most species beginning in early spring, juveniles should be mostly self-sufficient by the time the fall and winter rolls around, and be able to sustain themselves through the colder months or to make a long migration south. As they learn to navigate the world without parental support and guidance, the first fall and winter can be brutal on young animals. [pullquote]The winter months are the time of year when we see some of the most challenging cases at the Wildlife Clinic, and many times they are a result of young,…
