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WILDLIFE HAVEN SOARS The Wildlife Center of Virginia is a unique rescue, education facility
Waynesboro complex a one-of-a-kind wildlife sanctuary, hospital, teaching site and education center. By Rusty Dennen
Date published: 1/21/2006
AYNESBORO--The doctor has scrubbed up for the procedure, carefully rubbing an iodine disinfectant up to her elbows.
Blue surgical gown, hair net and face mask on, Camille Harris begins prepping the patient as operating room assistant Leigh-Ann Horne monitors vital signs and an intravenous drip.
It could be a scene from any general hospital, but this venue has nothing to do with people.
The doctors here are veterinarians and the patients, wild animals--in this case, a barred owl with a broken wing.
Harris, 28, covers the brown-and-white bird with sterile cloth to isolate the right wing, cutting a hole in the cloth to expose the area of the break. X-rays hang on a light screen nearby.
Earlier, the owl was anesthetized and feathers removed on the spot over the break, exposing pale, bumpy tan skin.
Harris and Horne work slowly, deliberately.
"I'm dissecting the muscle and tissue and placing a pin inside the bone to help stabilize it so it can heal," said Harris.
Rodents to raptors
Welcome to the Wildlife Center of Virginia, a one-of-a-kind private, nonprofit haven and hospital for all things wild, whose mission is treatment, conservation and education.
The patient on the table two weeks ago got here in a fairly typical way: The male bird was struck by a pickup truck, which inflicted an eye injury and the wing-break. The creature was probably hunting for mice along the highway.
The driver captured him, put him in a box, and took him to Natural Bridge Animal Hospital, which then sent the owl to the Wildlife Center.
Three hours later, Harris had finished the operation.
"He looks pretty darn good. The surgery went well, and he has a good prognosis," she said.
January is typically a slow month at the center, which sits under a canopy of hardwoods along a hillside in this Shenandoah Valley city off Interstate 64.
But "slow" is a relative term, staffers hasten to say. On a slow day, the center might get three or four animals; some days it can top out at 100 or more.
At any time someone can pull up to the glass doors out front with a cardboard box or bag containing most any kind of wild creature.
The list is exhaustive, from rodents to raptors, the occasional deer, bobcat, frog, bear, beaver, chipmunk and yellow-bellied sapsucker.
The lucky ones are patched up and sent back to where they were found, to be released. Some that survive but can't be let go become part of the center's traveling education menagerie, occupying roomy cages behind the main building.
Some, sadly, are euthanized.
Even some exotic animals not native to the state make their way here.
Date published: 1/21/2006
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