The Wildlife Center of Virginia

www.WildLifeCenter.org

The Wildlife Center of Virginia is an internationally acclaimed teaching and research hospital for wildlife and conservation medicine located in Waynesboro, Virginia.  Since its founding in 1982, the nonprofit Wildlife Center has cared for more than 50,000 wild animals, representing 200 species of native birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.  

The goal of the Center is to “treat to release” – to restore patients to health and return as many as possible to the wild.  The Center provides state-of-the-art medical care for the sick and injured and sustained, quality foster care so that animals are returned to the wild with the ability to survive, and thrive, in their native habitats.      

The problems that bring animals to the Center’s doorstep offer valuable measures of the environmental health of our own communities – problems associated with litter, loss of habitat, pesticides, domestic-animal predation, and diseases.  The Wildlife Center’s Education Department takes these insights and translates them into award-winning educational programs.  Since 1982, more than 1.4 million schoolchildren and adults have taken part in one of the Center’s education programs.  

An integral part of the Center’s programs are non-releasable animals – patients that have been treated at the Center but whose injuries or behavioral modifications preclude their return to the wild.  Center staff generally take three of these animals – a raptor, an opossum, and a snake or tortoise – for in-school programs.  These animals are living examples of the problems faced by wildlife and make life-changing impressions on audiences young and old.

For four seasons, the Wildlife Center shared environmental education messages and up-close encounters with wildlife with a worldwide audience through the award-winning television series Wildlife Emergency, aired on Animal Planet.  

The Wildlife Center also is a teaching hospital, offering training for veterinary, conservation and wildlife management officials across the United States and around the world.  The Wildlife Center has trained a total of about 500 veterinarians now working in 32 countries.  

The Center’s newest initiative is in the field of bioterrorism surveillance and emerging wildlife disease detection.  Most bio-weapons – like anthrax, plague and Ebola – are animal diseases that can be spread by wildlife.  The Center is working to create a network of wildlife hospitals across North America to conduct surveillance for the emergence in native wildlife of these diseases, including those with bio-security implications.

In 2007, the Wildlife Center received the prestigious National Conservation Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation for exemplary leadership in conserving wildlife and bridging the gap between wildlife conservation, public health and safety, and veterinary medicine.  Among the handful of other recipients of the 2007 Achievement Award were former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Al Gore and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In 2008, the Wildlife Center received the coveted four-star rating for sound fiscal management from Charity Navigator, the top rating provided by the nation’s premier independent evaluator of charitable organizations.  

Additional information about the Wildlife Center is available at www.wildlifecenter.org.