It’s that time of year again…
Baby season is almost here and we’re asking our community to help us prepare with supplies! We are in need of medical, cleaning and food supplies. You can support us directly by heading to Donate Now or feel free to browse our Amazon Wishlist.
Meanwhile,
Our local PBS station, WVIA, paid us a visit to help amplify our call for help with supplies and to speak with the leaders here at Pocono Wildlife.
How We Began:
Kathy Uhler, the center’s founder and now education director, spoke about how she first fell in love with wildlife rehabbing: “Well, when I was in college, I was at East Stroudsburg University and I met a wildlife rehabilitator. One of my majors was environmental science, so I did my internship there. And I loved it so much, I got licensed that winter. So, the winter of 1982, I was licensed for wildlife rehab.” And by 1983 Kathy had opened Pocono Wildlife Center, which has been serving countless animals across Northeastern Pennsylvania ever since. Beyond directly helping the animals, Kathy has hoped to educate the humans on how to be better neighbors to our animal siblings. “We have a very urban population in a very rural area. It’s unique in the entire country. So, the importance of education is vital. We have a lot of people who either love animals to death or are terrified of animals. And we want to get everybody, encouraging them to enjoy, support, and live with nature the very best we can.”
Respecting Their Habitats:
Susan Downing, one of the center’s two executive directors, showed off Aika the raven and Talia the red-tailed hawk, and spoke about the difficulty animals face as humans encroach further into their habitats: “With the amount of land that’s being taken from their natural habitats, and now they’re in our [back]yards to the point where we get phone calls saying, ‘Your coyotes escaped,’ and it’s like, ‘Actually no, that’s just a wild coyote [and] you’re in a brand-new [housing] development. That’s part of their hunting grounds.’ People don’t get it.” Acknowledging that sometimes animals can cause extensive damage to homes, Susan went on to ask folks to do one thing before removing a wild animal from their property: “If you have raccoons in your attic, if you have a fox under your shed, please don’t relocate it without knowing whether it’s a mom. Because, if you take that raccoon out of your attic…you’ve now orphaned all these babies.”
So remember, be kind to your animal neighbors, especially with baby season approaching, and give us a call if you ever come upon a critter in need!
Thank you to our friends at WVIA for helping with our call for support!
Read more on WVIA’s website:
