Why Support Wildlife Education?

Nebraskans care about the lives of animals; we see this plainly in the outpouring of phone calls, emails, and texts we receive from you on a daily basis. We know that you will give of your time, talent, and treasure to make a difference for the animals living in this great state and in the Great Plains at large. And we appreciate you. Without your generosity, the animals we receive wouldn’t get their chance to return to the wild where they belong.

It's an unfortunate truth that most wild animals in rehabilitation come to us because of the actions of people, accidental or intentional – not because of nature.  We don’t steal rabbits from the mouths of coyotes - we work with animals that have been shot, hit by cars, stolen from their mothers, and abused in countless other ways.  Our work makes an attempt to balance out the impact of people, with the ultimate goal of “leveling the playing field” for wildlife.

You're already aware and engaged. So why support wildlife education too? 

At NWRI, we strive to educate people on the right way to interact with wildlife, so we can reduce the need for rehabilitation and help leave animals in the wild – where they belong.  Educating students about wildlife early helps to develop respect for animals and the environment, and even other people and themselves.  That's why we love to create programs and projects with so many educational partners in the Omaha community.

  

People are more forthcoming in protecting that which they understand.  When students learn early about wildlife, habitats, and human-nature interactions, they develop a passion and deeper understanding of the world around them.  This understanding will spur them to become our next generation of scientists and conservationists.

 

As the biodiversity of the prairie diminishes, so does the possibility for the next generation to truly connect with these spaces. NWRI believes that the education and engagement of youth and the public at large is essential in creating a society that values habitat protection. NWRI recognizes diversity as fundamental to healthy communities, whether that be on the prairies or in our cities.   All of our rehab efforts also contribute to our educational outreach, and provide a platform for NWRI to reach Great Plains inhabitants with this conservation message.

 

Please help us reach out to not only physically help animals, but help others learn how to do so, too! This Wednesday, May 22, remember NWRI during Omaha Gives!, an amazing 24-hour give-a-thon that would vastly benefit the animals that share this space with all of us. We are but a small organization and it's easy for us to get lost in the crowd of all those other big, loud, brightly-colored non-profit organizations. Please remember us! If we got even one matching donation or prize, it would be HUGE for us.

 

Thanks for reading! And once again....thanks for all you do. 

    

THE TIME IS NIGH

We have a new home!!

The generosity of Ash Grove in Louisville, NE has allowed NWRI our very own 4,500 square foot habitat. Our new Wildlife Operations and Education Center is located just 10 miles off the Sapp Brothers Exit on Highway 50.

You can read about our new center, and all of the exciting things happening in our new newsletter, which is now available online here.

NWRI is poised to grow immensely now that we have a center! We will be growing in all areas - animal care, education, school projects, university internships and conservation partnerships.  Now is the time to get involved in this amazing and rewarding organization!

First, we need your financial support to cover the costs of running a center.  To help us towards this goal, some generous donors have issued a challenge grant to you!  (Yes, you!)  They will match every donation, dollar for dollar, made to NWRI in the month of December, up to $10,000.  This is the perfect opportunity to make your gift to our wildlife go even farther! Please donate through our PayPal link on the NWRI website.

(You can also set-up recurring donations from a credit or debit card to make your gift last year-round!  If you’d like to do this, just e-mail us at nebraskawildlife@yahoo.com and we’d be happy to send one to help you fulfill your gift!)

Second, we need your time! Over the next several weeks, we are going to be cleaning, painting and moving into the new building. Our first cleaning sessions will be Tuesday, December 6th and Wednesday, December 7th, from 4-8 PM both days. If you’re interested in coming and lending a hand, please us know at nebraskawildlife@yahoo.com or call Laura at 960-4366 so we know to expect you. Then, please watch the Events calendar on our Web site to find out when we’re going to be there, and what we’ll be doing. The more people who can help out, the faster we will be up and running in our new center! If you can clean, paint, vacuum, or move furniture, we need you!

Then, starting in January, we are going to start training volunteers to staff our hotline from the building. This will be a great job for anyone who wants to learn everything about our native wildlife, as well as NWRI as an organization. We would like volunteers who can commit to a 4-hour per week shift at the center in Louisville. It is intensely interesting and fulfilling work.

In February, we will start NWRI animal training for anyone who wants to rehabilitate wildlife. We need more animal rehabbers in almost every species, including squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, songbirds and waterfowl. This is an in-home volunteer opportunity, so volunteers do need to be able to care for wildlife in their homes.

Lastly, we need wildlife transporters to move wildlife from the Nebraska Humane Society to whomever will be caring for it. This is a one day per week commitment year-round, lasting maybe just 45 minutes to an hour in the winter, and up to three hours in the summer. It’s a fantastic job for someone who wants to learn a lot about wildlife, but can't care for animals in their home.

This is an incredibly exciting time to be involved with Nebraska Wildlife Rehab, and we hope you will join us in our new adventure as we expand to serve more of our homeland through our love for animals. It's been a long and winding road, and we know we are here because people like you care about the importance of wildlife. Thank you for all you do!

Please, make a donation to help Nebraska’s wildlife today! Remember – this holiday season your gift will go twice as far! If you donate in December, your donation will be doubled by a matching grant!

If you have any questions about donating or would like to volunteer, please let us know.


We, and the animals, appreciate your support!
 

Calling all Bobcats...

Hello to all our wildlife friends! As some of you may know, we have been working with the students of the Underwood Hills Focus School (3rd through 6th grade) to build an Outdoor Science Classroom at the school. This classroom has been designed by the students and includes bat, bird, and butterfly houses, a digital weather station, and a huge native prairie garden. This project has been partially funded by the Nebraska Environmental Trust, administered by the Nebraska Academy of Sciences.

The students have been working hard since last spring -- they have done extensive research, designed and built all of their houses and picked out their plants. While they were on fall break these past two weeks, the school district was supposed to clear the approximately 500 square feet garden plot of sod so the students could till, landscape and plant over the coming three weeks (seeds and bare root plants). However, the school district HAS NOT cleared the land and we are in desperate need of someone with a bobcat or other large machinery to come in and clear the sod for us ASAP. With the cooler weather upon us, it's really important that this garden go in soon! If you or anyone you know can help, please call Laura Stastny at 402-960-4366 as soon as you can! We all thank you for your help!

Also, if you are interested in joining students and parents to lay pavers and put in plants on a Monday or Wednesday afternoon in the next few weeks, please call Laura or email nebraskawildlife@yahoo.com. We'd love to have your help with this exciting and energizing project!

Finally, if you can't help out on the ground, but would like to donate to this cause, we'd still like to raise funds for some extras for the students, including field guides and references, binoculars to scope out the birds in their new houses, and even a Web cam for the bat house.

Donations can be made to NWRI by check at PO Box 24122, Omaha, NE 68124 (just write Focus School in the memo line) or by PayPal. You can find our PayPal link here.


We appreciate all of your help in making these students' hours of hard work and dedication an educational success!

Have you ever seen a mink?

I hadn't, until Nebraska Wildlife received these three sweet little babies!

Last month a local business had to move a piece of heavy machinery that had been sitting all winter on a work site near the Missouri river in northeast Omaha.  When they did, a mother mink ran out, leaving behind her three babies that were only a few days old.  It was a blustery, rainy day, but one of the workers knew he needed to give the mother a chance to reclaim her young, so he put them in a container and left them near the original den site, making sure they stayed warm.  The kind worker did exactly the right thing, but unfortunately the mother didn't return the entire day, likely due to all the human commotion and noise on the work site.  Because the day was so cold and wet, the minks' rescuer knew he couldn't leave them on the construction site overnight, and had no choice but to take the babies home with him when he left for the day.  He immediately called NWRI and transferred them to us so that they could receive the care they needed.  

 

 

Over the past three weeks, they have more than quadrupled in weight and are beginning to look more like mink than they did when they first arrived.  They are getting very close to opening their eyes (mink open their eyes at 3 1/2 to four weeks of age) and will be transitioned off of formula and over to solid food within a few weeks after that.  We are working on designing and building a wilding cage specifically for mink, as they can escape from most of our traditional caging.  They'll need to spend time in this cage to acclimate to the outdoors, so we expect to have them for a few months as they learn to hunt, swim, and make their way in the wild! 

 

 Just look at these tiny things. What a privilege to care for them, and what a responsibility to do it right!

Would you like to help us care for these fuzzy little mink? Every donated dollar goes directly to food in these creatures' bellies and the wilding cages we build for them. Help us help animals here!

We'll be back with updates....thanks for all you do!

Meet the Beaver!

Surprise! A little over a month ago, utilities workers in north-central Nebraska found a baby beaver that they thought had a broken leg! Poor thing. They picked her up and took her to the nearest veterinarian, which happened to be a spay-neuter clinic.  The veterinarian didn't have x-ray equipment on site, so she splinted the baby's leg and her assistant contacted us here at Nebraska Wildlife Rehab. A volunteer at the clinic transported the baby to Valentine, NE and cared for her overnight.  Then the next day, she drove the baby to meet Shelley, a Nebraska Wildlife volunteer from O'Neill.  Shelley took the baby back to O'Neill, where she met up with a couple more of our volunteers from Omaha, Susie and Dan.  They drove the baby all the way back to Omaha on the same day, a seven-hour trip in total, to make sure she received the medical attention and formula she needed!

On Saturday, April 24th, Dr. Keith Halsey at VCA Animal Medical Center x-rayed the little beaver's leg and determined that although it was sprained, it was not broken, and that it should heal without any intervention.  Nebraska Wildlife volunteers now have the long task of raising and rehabilitating this unique baby and returning her to the wild. 

Amy, this baby's primary caretaker, reports that she has been on formula for several weeks now, but is really beginning to eat solid foods.  She loves sweet potatoes and willow branches.  Her diet consists of several other foods as well, but those are her favorites!  

Since it has been such a long time since Nebraska Wildlife has had baby beavers, we no longer have an enclosure suitable for their rehabilitation and are in the process of a building a new, large enclosure, complete with a pool and "chew-proof" walls.  We couldn't do all of this work with our amazing animals if it wasn't for the support of our generous public-- so if you find your heartstrings tugged, please donate to our baby beaver's care and her new home today! We'll post pictures of her enclosure once it's built and keep you posted on her progress too!

VERY exciting news!

It has finally happened! Nebraska Wildlife Rehab has been offered a BUILDING!


(Meet Chuck, our president Kay's husband.)

Isn't it beautiful? Ash Grove is located a mere 10 minutes from the Sapp Brothers interstate exit, approximately 20-30 minutes from most of Omaha via the interstate and Highway 50, and it is right next to the Schramm Park State Recreational Area. We can do SO MUCH with this building. It will be our first center of operations ever, giving us a real street address and a base for conducting the business end of non-profit work. We'll staff it with volunteers to field the wildlife hotline calls! Transporters can drop off animals in need! We'll be able to host wildlife training and certification events, and call board and volunteer meetings in our very own space! We're even looking into hopefully hosting field trips for elementary children as well as possibly figuring out a summer internship program. The possibilities are truly endless.

Ash Grove Cement is generously offering the use of this building to us for a whopping $1 per year. We will be responsible for utilities, insurance, and routine upkeep and maintenance. For us to be able run the center on an all-volunteer basis we are estimating that we'll need an additional $10,000 per year, and we are needing to come up with that amount of money within the next 30 days. So on that note, we need your help!

1) WE NEED MONEY!
For insurance, utilities and other immediate building necessities, we absolutely must have $10,000 within the next 30 days. Otherwise, we may not be able to take on the responsibilities of this building and all the opportunities it could give us. That's not a lot of time! Nebraska is one of only three states without a permanent wildlife rehabilitation facility-- we are doing this ourselves, out of pocket, on our own time.

2) WE NEED VOLUNTEERS.
We need as many willing hands as possible to help us whip the building into shape this summer. The building is a bit run-down from disuse, but it's nothing a little elbow grease won't be able to fix.

Once the building is up and running, we will ALSO need volunteers to staff the hotline and help the public with their wildlife questions and problems. If you are interested in learning everything there is to know about wildlife in Nebraska, this is the volunteer gig for you!


Please help us make this happen for the animals! Please donate to help us secure this building and all of its advantages!


And please, do tell your friends.

We have new furry babies!

On Saturday, April 3rd, a farmer and his wife found two beautiful fox kits hiding underneath a round hay bale on their farm west of O'Neill, Nebraska. The two kits, a boy and a girl with eyes still sealed shut, were cold and out of their den, with a dead sibling lying next to them. Their mother was nowhere to be found. At a mere 12 days old, they would have died out there had they not been rescued. Shelly, a wildlife rehabilitator in O'Neill, collected the kits and cared for them until they were transported to us in Omaha on April 5th. On that day, their little eyes opened and they began to explore their new world!

They are thriving wonderfully under care. In the first week alone they doubled their body weight and they are still eating with gusto, moving about confidently, playing, pouncing on each other, wrestling and climbing. Just yesterday they were weaned off a bottle and are now lapping their formula from a dish. They are healthy, exuberant five-week-olds! Here are pictures of the little fuzzballs:

If YOU would like to make a donation to help support the care of these baby foxes, please visit our website!

http://www.nebraskawildliferehab.org/

Hover the mouse over "Get Involved," then click "How You Can Help." There, you'll find a Donations link with instructions on how to donate to Nebraska Wildlife via PayPal or by mailing a check.  Alternately, you can scroll down the right side of this blog and look for the brown "Get Involved" box-- a link to the Donations page is there as well. Remember, it is YOUR generous support that makes our work possible!


Well be back with updates on Thing 1 and Thing 2 (just kidding), so stay tuned for that and other exciting news! We appreciate your kind help in caring for our wild friends! And of course, so do the snuggly foxes.

Our bat program...

was a big success! Thank you to everyone who came out to see the program and meet our little bat friends. It was a pleasure to meet you!



We hope you enjoy your Halloween. Thanks for all you do!

Community Support Day was a smashing success!

Thanks to all of you who came to Nebraska Furniture Mart in support of NWRI this weekend, we absolutely destroyed our goal ($1000) and raised over $2100! This will set us up beautifully for the winter. Thank you so much!

Community Support Day

Hello fellow wildlife-lovers, 

Community Support Day is coming up at Nebraska Furniture Mart on Saturday, October 24^th from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM.  Nebraska Wildlife Rehab has a table, and we're hoping to raise some serious cash to help with our winter expenses. To help NWRI raise money through this event, here’s what we ask:

 

Buy a coupon book from NWRI for $10.  NWRI keeps your donation, and you get a coupon from The Mart for $10 off a $10 purchase to use on the 24^th!  This means that you donate your money to a great cause, and get the same amount back on your purchase from The Mart!  There are also tons of other great coupons in the book, including one for 10% Off  Your Total Furniture Purchase, a Free Standard Bed Frame with a Mattress Set Purchase of $499 and up, and 60% Off Any In-Stock Area Rug Purchase.  There are also some Hot Buys, like $6.99 For a Ronco 6-piece Steak Knife Set, 20% Off Any Table or Floor Lamp, and $9.99 for a 5' x 7' Carpet (Area Rug).

 

To buy a book, call or e-mail Laura (960-4366 or lastastny@yahoo.com ) or Kaci (926-9008 or kaci.caldwell@nfm.com ) and we’ll get one (or many!) to you ASAP!  This is a fantastic way to donate to NWRI and get something in return.  Our goal is to sell at least 100 coupon books in the next two weeks.  Please help!

Thanks for all you do. :D