Stories and pictures from The Hope For Wildlife Society and my thoughts on outdoor issues
This Season of Newborns Begins
Spring is a big, remarkable time of year at Hope for Wildlife. Once the floodgates open, hundred of young animals and birds surge in. Some require medical treatment, still more just food and a safe place so they have a magical chance of one day going back to the wild.
However, the fact that most young birds and animals are so lovable really complicates things . In fact, across North America it has been estimated that 40% of fawns that end up in rescue centers have really been “kidnapped”, not rescued. The numbers of birds in the same situation is![]()
said to be even higher. For the average concerned human, it all can involve very confusing decisions.
When the storm broke Easter Week for the Seaforth site, raccoons and red squirrels led the way in.
The first raccoons this Spring were actually born at the HFW shelter, the result of a pest control agency trapping a bedraggled and pregnant female who had made herself unwanted in a metro neighbourhood.
Two groups of newborn red squirrels arrived at about the same time. The second arrived care of a construction crew demolishing someone’s roof. HFW founder and CEO Hope Swinimer told me they were so young, it was borderline if they would survive.
Of course, some wild youngsters are born survivors, but squirrels of an early age are not. They are born hairless, unable to walk, and with their eyes closed. This type of wildlife baby is called “altricial”. Raccoons are also of this type, and all altricial young ones are truly helpless in the first few weeks of their lives.
I remember years ago at my summer cottage when a friend and I picked up a rotten log to heave aside while making a flower bed. It split, and a dozen or more of what appeared to be wiggling grubs tumbled out. Their mother bolted the other way. Red backed voles are altricial. So are most songbirds and birds of prey. Without warmth, darkness, and quiet, they have little chance.
Other young ones have an advantage. They are born with their eyes open, hair, fur, or down on their bodies, and can walk only hours after birth. Deer and hare are of this sort, and so are birds such as ducks and pheasants. They are called “precocial”.
My family was once on a June walk near our cottage when we rounded a turn in the path and came face to face with a fawn. The little one froze mid-trail and stared. Eventually, my two year old daughter edged slowly forward, pausing when the wild and domestic young ones were only a meter apart. Unfortunately, at that point she tried to hug Bambi, and the tiny deer leapt into the woods, where very likely her mom had been waiting the whole time.
Fawn’s are mobile soon after birth, and are built to help themselves. With furred bodies, they produce and maintain some degree of body heat. When threatened, they freeze all movement. Their mottled colouring is a magnificent camouflage and they instinctively know that predators attack motion, not shapes. In addition, newborn deer are scentless for the first few weeks of their lives.
Later, several people told me we should have rescued the “poor little thing.” No matter how often I told them that the mother was likely right there in the bush, watching, the thought of the fawn “alone” tugged on heartstrings.
The fact is, not all wild babies are as helpless as they appear, nor in need of help. Act with your head, not your heart, when deciding if a wild animal needs rescuing.
For more complete information, go to the Hope for Wildlife web site
www.hopeforwildlife.netand read Wildlife Tips, or phone 452-3339 for specific information.
Jimmy Flynn To Entertain At May Fundraising Gala
I’ve known Jimmy Flynn for more than 30 years. As an entertainment columnist, I wrote about his old group Finnegan back in the 1970s. As a teacher, I taught both his sons high school English. Since launching himself as a solo entertainer, Jimmy has taken his wild brand of East Coast comedy all over Canada and become one of the best known comics around. Here and there, I lost track of him, but he never stopped making people laugh. The fact that he’s been successful for more than 30 years, non-stop, suggests just how successful and well-known he is.
He also, in that time, established himself as an outdoorsman, and his hunting and fishing shows have been featured on radio and television across the region and beyond.
When I ran into Jimmy in March, he told me he’d given up hunting with a gun and turned to photography. He also said he would be providing the entertainment of the Second Annual Hope for Wildlife Dinner and Auction![]()
Gala on May 9 at the Holiday Inn, Wyse Road, Dartmouth.
Hope took Jimmy on his first tour of the HFW facility this March. He was impressed, but had to have his fun, including trying to get a kiss out of the resident pine martin, Gretel.
For more information on the Gala and tickets thereto, phone: 221-6645. To catch up (he said without relish) on Jimmy’s comedic comings and goings, try http://www.youwillhavefun.com
Wildlife On Wheels At Scotia Speedworld
I’ve sometimes heard stock cars described as great screaming, strutting, smelly beasts. Never, ever, in my wildest dreams did I see a connection with the Hope for Wildlife Society and its work with wild things.
Then again, I’m not Cole Butcher, a 12 year old Porter’s Lake resident and Gaetz Brook Junior High student. The son of Anne and Darren Butcher, Cole placed 10th overall last year in the Bandolero (under 16) class at Scotia Speedworld.
He plans to move up in the ranks when racing starts in May, and as his hot and wild wheels hit the pavement, don’t be surprised if he has furred and feathered fans, as well as many wildlife rescue workers, cheering him on. What’s different? Take a look at the new paintjob on his car! He’ll be taking the Hope for Wildlife Society message to a crowd of up to 6,000 people every Friday summer night.
Cole comes to the message naturally. He’s the nephew of Lisa Butcher, who with Hope Swinimer founded the Hope for Wildlife Society.
The season at Scotia Speedworld opens May 23. For more info:
http://www.scotiaspeedworld.ca
Raccoon Art Huge Success
“Did I just see what I thought I saw? Was there just a story on TV about selling paintings BY raccoons?”
That statement on a local news discussion web site was typical when Argyle Fine Art featured a display hand painted by young masked residents of the Hope for Wildlife center. Raccoons have unusual forepaws, much like human hands, in fact. Part of their learning comes from touching, feeling, and manipulating things. Although a mature raccoon can be very dangerous, they are cute little critters when they are young, and when you get 250 or more in as orphans each year, the humans at Hope for Wildlife have to find ways of letting them learn.
The HFW staff discovered several years ago that they love playing with finger paints. The result has been a number of highly artistic canvasses, all of which were put on display and sale recently at Argyle Fine Arts in Halifax’ Historic Properties.
Were they popular? The Saturday I was there, the place was packed. Not only that, so many people wanted their favorites that one painting was accidentally sold twice! All money raised went to offset animal care expenses, and so far, no agents have showed up claiming to represent any raccoons!
Argyle Fine Art is an interesting place, obviously open to new ideas.
www.argylefa.dyndns.biz/gallery/argylemain.htm
Seaforth Does National Poetry Month
I checked the League of Canadian Poets web site. Deirdre Dwyer’s reading at the Hope for Wildlife education center was the only one I found for April in Nova Scotia, which was strange because April has been National Poetry Month this year.
Dwyer, a distinguished poet with two collections printed and a term under her belt as HRM’s Poet Laureate, read from two “in the works” collections. One dealt with her childhood cottage on the Minas Basin, the other inspired with her present life on the Eastern Shore.
Dwyer’s work has the important poetic nuance of being both highly personal and intensely universal. Her reading was enjoyed.
Two other poets read. Rowland Marshall presented some of his haiku, while Karla J. Henderson read a poem so new the ink was hardly dry. After two days of reworking, here is what immerged:
Spring at Hope's
by Karla J. Henderson
It is spring, the first time that I meet her - Hope,
and she cradles an infinitesimal bleating thing
- something at risk of living at any moment-
there in her bare palm,
force-feeding the little beast with a gigantic 3cc syringe.
I wonder: Will it join the on-looking
one-legged blue jays
orphaned raccoons
a sugar glider
a tortoise
a vole
and several humans?
Something happens to you here, especially in the spring:
When the baby raccoon won't
let go of your shirt when the bottle is finished
When the woodpecker doesn't make it and so
you feed it to the bobcat.
When a volunteer hangs a sun-catcher
in the nursery window.
When a raven swoops down on the counter as you
cut up apples for the porcupine and asks:
Remember me?
What is an ordinary person to do but collapse
into the soft landing of this wild-life-world?
This Season of Newborns Begins
Spring is a big, remarkable time of year at Hope for Wildlife. Once the floodgates open, hundred of young animals and birds surge in. Some require medical treatment, still more just food and a safe place so they have a magical chance of one day going back to the wild.
However, the fact that most young birds and animals are so lovable really complicates things . In fact, across North America it has been estimated that 40% of fawns that end up in rescue centers have really been “kidnapped”, not rescued. The numbers of birds in the same situation is
said to be even higher. For the average concerned human, it all can involve very confusing decisions.When the storm broke Easter Week for the Seaforth site, raccoons and red squirrels led the way in.
The first raccoons this Spring were actually born at the HFW shelter, the result of a pest control agency trapping a bedraggled and pregnant female who had made herself unwanted in a metro neighbourhood.
Two groups of newborn red squirrels arrived at about the same time. The second arrived care of a construction crew demolishing someone’s roof. HFW founder and CEO Hope Swinimer told me they were so young, it was borderline if they would survive.
Of course, some wild youngsters are born survivors, but squirrels of an early age are not. They are born hairless, unable to walk, and with their eyes closed. This type of wildlife baby is called “altricial”. Raccoons are also of this type, and all altricial young ones are truly helpless in the first few weeks of their lives.
I remember years ago at my summer cottage when a friend and I picked up a rotten log to heave aside while making a flower bed. It split, and a dozen or more of what appeared to be wiggling grubs tumbled out. Their mother bolted the other way. Red backed voles are altricial. So are most songbirds and birds of prey. Without warmth, darkness, and quiet, they have little chance.
Other young ones have an advantage. They are born with their eyes open, hair, fur, or down on their bodies, and can walk only hours after birth. Deer and hare are of this sort, and so are birds such as ducks and pheasants. They are called “precocial”.
My family was once on a June walk near our cottage when we rounded a turn in the path and came face to face with a fawn. The little one froze mid-trail and stared. Eventually, my two year old daughter edged slowly forward, pausing when the wild and domestic young ones were only a meter apart. Unfortunately, at that point she tried to hug Bambi, and the tiny deer leapt into the woods, where very likely her mom had been waiting the whole time.
Fawn’s are mobile soon after birth, and are built to help themselves. With furred bodies, they produce and maintain some degree of body heat. When threatened, they freeze all movement. Their mottled colouring is a magnificent camouflage and they instinctively know that predators attack motion, not shapes. In addition, newborn deer are scentless for the first few weeks of their lives.
Later, several people told me we should have rescued the “poor little thing.” No matter how often I told them that the mother was likely right there in the bush, watching, the thought of the fawn “alone” tugged on heartstrings.
The fact is, not all wild babies are as helpless as they appear, nor in need of help. Act with your head, not your heart, when deciding if a wild animal needs rescuing.
For more complete information, go to the Hope for Wildlife web site
www.hopeforwildlife.netand read Wildlife Tips, or phone 452-3339 for specific information.
Jimmy Flynn To Entertain At May Fundraising Gala
I’ve known Jimmy Flynn for more than 30 years. As an entertainment columnist, I wrote about his old group Finnegan back in the 1970s. As a teacher, I taught both his sons high school English. Since launching himself as a solo entertainer, Jimmy has taken his wild brand of East Coast comedy all over Canada and become one of the best known comics around. Here and there, I lost track of him, but he never stopped making people laugh. The fact that he’s been successful for more than 30 years, non-stop, suggests just how successful and well-known he is.
He also, in that time, established himself as an outdoorsman, and his hunting and fishing shows have been featured on radio and television across the region and beyond.
When I ran into Jimmy in March, he told me he’d given up hunting with a gun and turned to photography. He also said he would be providing the entertainment of the Second Annual Hope for Wildlife Dinner and Auction
Gala on May 9 at the Holiday Inn, Wyse Road, Dartmouth.Hope took Jimmy on his first tour of the HFW facility this March. He was impressed, but had to have his fun, including trying to get a kiss out of the resident pine martin, Gretel.
For more information on the Gala and tickets thereto, phone: 221-6645. To catch up (he said without relish) on Jimmy’s comedic comings and goings, try http://www.youwillhavefun.com
Wildlife On Wheels At Scotia Speedworld
I’ve sometimes heard stock cars described as great screaming, strutting, smelly beasts. Never, ever, in my wildest dreams did I see a connection with the Hope for Wildlife Society and its work with wild things.
Then again, I’m not Cole Butcher, a 12 year old Porter’s Lake resident and Gaetz Brook Junior High student. The son of Anne and Darren Butcher, Cole placed 10th overall last year in the Bandolero (under 16) class at Scotia Speedworld.
He plans to move up in the ranks when racing starts in May, and as his hot and wild wheels hit the pavement, don’t be surprised if he has furred and feathered fans, as well as many wildlife rescue workers, cheering him on. What’s different? Take a look at the new paintjob on his car! He’ll be taking the Hope for Wildlife Society message to a crowd of up to 6,000 people every Friday summer night.
Cole comes to the message naturally. He’s the nephew of Lisa Butcher, who with Hope Swinimer founded the Hope for Wildlife Society.
The season at Scotia Speedworld opens May 23. For more info:
http://www.scotiaspeedworld.ca
Raccoon Art Huge Success
“Did I just see what I thought I saw? Was there just a story on TV about selling paintings BY raccoons?”
That statement on a local news discussion web site was typical when Argyle Fine Art featured a display hand painted by young masked residents of the Hope for Wildlife center. Raccoons have unusual forepaws, much like human hands, in fact. Part of their learning comes from touching, feeling, and manipulating things. Although a mature raccoon can be very dangerous, they are cute little critters when they are young, and when you get 250 or more in as orphans each year, the humans at Hope for Wildlife have to find ways of letting them learn.
The HFW staff discovered several years ago that they love playing with finger paints. The result has been a number of highly artistic canvasses, all of which were put on display and sale recently at Argyle Fine Arts in Halifax’ Historic Properties.
Were they popular? The Saturday I was there, the place was packed. Not only that, so many people wanted their favorites that one painting was accidentally sold twice! All money raised went to offset animal care expenses, and so far, no agents have showed up claiming to represent any raccoons!
Argyle Fine Art is an interesting place, obviously open to new ideas.
www.argylefa.dyndns.biz/gallery/argylemain.htm
Seaforth Does National Poetry Month
I checked the League of Canadian Poets web site. Deirdre Dwyer’s reading at the Hope for Wildlife education center was the only one I found for April in Nova Scotia, which was strange because April has been National Poetry Month this year.
Dwyer, a distinguished poet with two collections printed and a term under her belt as HRM’s Poet Laureate, read from two “in the works” collections. One dealt with her childhood cottage on the Minas Basin, the other inspired with her present life on the Eastern Shore.
Dwyer’s work has the important poetic nuance of being both highly personal and intensely universal. Her reading was enjoyed.
Two other poets read. Rowland Marshall presented some of his haiku, while Karla J. Henderson read a poem so new the ink was hardly dry. After two days of reworking, here is what immerged:
Spring at Hope's
by Karla J. Henderson
It is spring, the first time that I meet her - Hope,
and she cradles an infinitesimal bleating thing
- something at risk of living at any moment-
there in her bare palm,
force-feeding the little beast with a gigantic 3cc syringe.
I wonder: Will it join the on-looking
one-legged blue jays
orphaned raccoons
a sugar glider
a tortoise
a vole
and several humans?
Something happens to you here, especially in the spring:
When the baby raccoon won't
let go of your shirt when the bottle is finished
When the woodpecker doesn't make it and so
you feed it to the bobcat.
When a volunteer hangs a sun-catcher
in the nursery window.
When a raven swoops down on the counter as you
cut up apples for the porcupine and asks:
Remember me?
What is an ordinary person to do but collapse
into the soft landing of this wild-life-world?