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!
 

OPPD to the Rescue!

On Sunday evening, NWRI received a call that there was a pigeon hanging from an "invisible line" above a pole on 55th and Leavenworth. We contacted the Nebraska Humane Society to see if they had dispatched to the call and they had, but there was nothing they could do because the bird was too high and beyond their reach.

 

So, unable to ignore an animal in distress, we went to the site at 8 p.m. that night to find that the pigeon was hanging by a wing from what was likely a fishing line. It was still alive and in desperate need of help. It was hanging halfway between the tree and the electrical pole, above the sidewalk, probably about 50' in the air!

The pigeon isn't in this picture, but he was a few feet above the top of this pole and a few feet to the right, hanging above the sidewalk about halfway between the tree and the pole.



We tried calling tree trimmers, Cox Cable, and the utilities -- anyone with machinery that could get that high in the air. Finally, Dave from OPPD answered our call for help! He arrived on the scene and was able to determine that the pigeon was hanging from fishing line that extended from the nearest tree all the way across Leavenworth Street, where it was attached to another pole! He extended his cherry picker to its highest limits and was able to cut the line and catch the pigeon as it swung towards him. He brought it down to us, safely on the ground.

Upon examination, we were shocked to see that although the fishing line was wrapped several times around the pigeon's wing, there are no broken bones or dislocations! His wing was swollen from lack of circulation and very sore, and he does have some feather damage. We cut all of the remaining line away, and gave him some medication to help with the swelling. He is now resting comfortably and will be released in just a few days!

 

 

 

 

 

We know that many people, even bird lovers, are not fond of pigeons, but this guy was in serious distress and we couldn't leave him there to suffer!

 

 

We are incredibly grateful to Dave from OPPD for helping save this guy!

Thank you, Dave!

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!

Phew! What a summer!

Please excuse the long interruption in posts-- it's been quite a busy summer for everyone! Here are our most recent pictures of the sweet little beaver and tiny, fuzzy minks we had....none of whom are so tiny anymore!

Spring into Summer Update

It has been an exciting spring for all of us with Nebraska Wildlife Rehab, Inc. (NWRI)! We have received several charges that are unusual in rehab, including a baby beaver, a baby muskrat, 3 baby minks, and a beautiful Franklin’s gull. All of these aquatic creatures have really tested the limits of our caging resources (we don’t have that many pools!) but we are really enjoying their time with us, and are thrilled at how well they are growing and learning the skills they need for their release.
The big story for us right now is the extreme number of baby raccoons we have received and are trying to manage right now. After a very slow start to raccoons this spring, they have been flooding in! We have about 80 babies now with another month or so for juveniles to continue to be admitted for care, and we need your help! Please consider the following:

VOLUNTEER – Whether you are a seasoned veteran or a brand-new volunteer, we need help now! We have 14 babies in need of immediate placement, including the following:

- A litter of four that are nursing well off a bottle. They are working on weaning now, and will need about two to three weeks in care before moving outside.

- A single baby, far younger than our other babies, that needs to be fed four times a day. She needs about five weeks with a rehabilitator before she can be weaned.

- Three single babies, all eating formula out of a dish. They need to be weaned, and will require another two to three weeks in care before moving outside.

- Another litter of three babies, all eating formula out of a dish. They need to be weaned, and will require another two weeks in care before moving outside. These babies are not friendly and will need an experienced hand.
**Please note that to be a raccoon volunteer, you must be in a house (no apartments please!) and there cannot be any children under the age of 12 in your home.

If you’d like to help, please call Laura at 960-4366 or e-mail her at lastastny@yahoo.com. If you have never completed a volunteer application, you can find it online at:

http://www.nebraskawildliferehab.org/pdf/get_involved/volunteering/application.pdf


DONATE – Raccoons are the most expensive animal we rehabilitate on a regular basis. Each baby costs NWRI about $50 to raise, including formula, food and caging. Please consider donating today to sponsor one or more babies!

http://www.nebraskawildliferehab.org/how_you_can_help.html#donations


BUILD A CAGE – With all of the extra babies, we need more caging! Raccoons spend about eight weeks in an outdoor wilding cage once they are weaned. We need additional cages and release sites for them to accommodate all of our raccoons! A new cage costs about $200 to build, so you can help by donating to build a new cage, or by putting a cage on your property if you live in a rural area with good raccoon habitat!


If you have any questions about how you can help us with our raccoon explosion, please call or e-mail Laura at 960-4366 or lastastny@yahoo.com.


There are tons of other exciting developments happening at NWRI this spring, including a project with the Underwood Hills Focus School to build an Outdoor Science Classroom and wildlife habitat on school grounds, and a new home of our own! Watch your mail for our newsletter with more details in the coming weeks. If you’re not on our mailing list, you can make a donation to receive the newsletter or watch our Web site for the new newsletter, which will be posted there once it is sent!

That's the update. Thanks for all you do!

Baby opossums in my backyard

I'm currently rearing a litter of six little joeys. They're lapping their formula now and very interested in applesauce, escaping their kennel, scattering in all directions in the backyard, and practicing their climbing with this tree and tire swing!

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!