The onset of winter weather hasn't slowed down a busy year at the Medicine River Wildlife Centre (MRWC).While Carol Kelly, the centre's executive director, said the year's total wild animal patients look like they'll be down slightly from average, centre staff are busy preparing to apply for grants for a new season, deciding how to tackle next year's research and working on fundraising.“It's actually been a reasonably quiet fall,” Kelly said of incoming patients. The centre's had about 1,200 animals come through its doors this year so far, with the average being about 1,300.This year they fostered 93 young animals. This ranges from birds to fawns.“Any kind of orphan that we get in,” she said.The fostering program involves either taking their chances on Crown land or having landowners let the centre know they have animal families on their properties. The orphaned animal is taken out and a loudspeaker is used to broadcast the call of a distressed young one to attract a mother figure who could take on the animal as its own.The process is often done with deer.“If there is a lactating doe who wants that fawn, she will let you know,” she said.They set up blinds or stay inside the car to watch. Sometimes someone will dress in a suit that makes them resemble a bush and spray themselves with “no-scent” to try and observe and even record the process.“Each year we kind of take it to a whole new level,” she said of the fostering program. MRWC started fostering 20 years ago with an injured hawk, then took it up to foxes and skunks and kept going.“It saves money, it saves work, it also puts the animal back where it belongs,” she said.Centre staff have attended conferences to help bring the idea of fostering to the wildlife care community. She said fostering rather than raising the wild animals brought in is a concept that's gaining traction in the U.S.“We've been asked to come and speak again in Portland,” she said.This past year, MRWC levelled up its own program by adding a data-gathering element.“We entered into a bit of more serious research with it this year,” she said. They're trying to show fostering is a viable method.The research was done by attaching transmitters onto the ears of some of the fawns they fostered out. Unfortunately the transmitters didn't last as long as they'd hoped but they have a new source to try again next year.“We'll be able to follow them for a longer time,” she said.They're hoping next year to do the same again and try the transmitters on coyote pups. They had a permit to try the process on orphaned pups this year but didn't get a chance to use it.There's nothing in the data they were able to collect this year that showed fostering isn't working, she said.With all that ongoing, Kelly is also starting the process of applying for federal and provincial grant money to do a complete renovation of the facility.Ideally, grant money would cover half of the $2.4 million needed. She's hoping individuals and corporations will step up to help with the rest.“We will need matching dollars,” she said, adding those dollars could actually be services instead of cash.“This is a beautiful upgrade,” she said. It would make the MRWC completely green, with things like solar hot water heating and composting toilets.The hospital would double in size and the visitors' area would be more than twice its current area.“Which makes it a fully-fledged tourist attraction,” she said, noting while they do get visitors currently, a more thorough tourist area would help bring more money into the shelter.Increasing the hospital size would also have an advantage.“It will make us a teaching wildlife hospital,” she said.To that end, she's hoping they can attract “venture philanthropists,” individuals and businesses who are willing to commit two to three years of time and money. The example she gave is a company appointing someone to sit on a committee, helping develop educational displays and also giving a donation.“They don't just give you money, they give you expertise and time,” she said. “There's room for every level.”Currently one of the biggest fundraisers for MRWC is underway – the annual calendar sale. For $20, buyers get a calendar and a raffle ticket to win a cage diver shark adventure in San Francisco.She said the money raised from the calendar is one of the larger chunks of the centre's $400,000 budget.“We make anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000 depending on how much we sell,” she said. They haven't sold out yet but each year they get closer to doing so. The calendars are available online at www.medicineriverwildlifecentre.ca or at various locations in Red Deer.
