Lambton County wildlife rescue charity needs support

A Lambton County charity is appealing for donations so it can keep rescuing orphaned and injured wildlife.

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Heaven’s Wildlife Rescue Rehabilitation and Education Center was hit hard by the recent Canada Post strike, when a Christmas newsletter couldn’t be mailed out before the holidays.

In the past, the newsletter brought in $2,500 to $5,000 in donations, said founder Peggy Jenkins. “It’s really important because it helps us get through the winter months.”

The center, south of Oil Springs, is staffed by volunteers but counts on donations to cover operating costs and medical supplies to treat injured animals.

Those costs range from $60,000 to $100,000 a year.

“Right now, we’re trying to get ready for next year and raise enough money for our medical supplies, formula and food,” Jenkins said.

“We have to have everything that is ready for spring” when the center’s busy season begins, she said.

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The center became a registered charity last year and now can issue receipts for income tax purposes, Jenkins said.

For more information, visit heavenswildliferescue.org.

“It’s worrisome,” Jenkins said of the funding challenges. “We’re really hoping this charitable status helps us.”

During its busy spring and summer months, the center has help from volunteer interns who travel from Europe and elsewhere, Jenkins said.

“They usually stay from one to sometimes three months,” she said. “They learn a lot and they’re really valuable to us.”

Interns live at the center and help care for animals, including orphaned infants that may have to be bottle fed four to five times a day, Jenkins said.

There may be as many as 150 infants at the center at one time, during the busy season, all requiring different levels of care, she said.

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The center accepts injured and orphaned raccoons, squirrels, foxes, skunks, weasels, minks, opossums and others, but not deer or birds.

One thing local volunteers could help with is fundraising for the center, which has no paid staff, Jenkins said.

“I can’t be here with the animals and trying to run things, and then out at a fundraiser too,” she said. “If someone could just take over that part and run with it, that would be awesome.”

Jenkins said she’d like to care for 450 to 500 animals a year, “but without funds, we just can’t take those animals in.”

The center, launched in 2011, is licensed and inspected by Ontario’s Natural Resources Ministry but gets no government money for its work to rehabilitate orphaned, injured and displaced wildlife for return to the wild.

“If we weren’t here, what are these babies going to do? There’s nobody else,” Jenkins said.

“I’ve heard people say this many times, ‘let nature take its course,’ ” she said. “Well, that’s not going to fly with me.”

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