By Yvonne Wallace Blane | Co-founder, Fellow Mortals Wildlife Hospital
Dear friends and recurring monthly donors, and other supporters--I hope this finds you safe and well.
I am writing to let you know how much we appreciate all you have made possible in the past.
To our recurring donors--you are appreciated so very much, especially now.
We understand that everyone is anxious and unsure of what the future holds--we understand things are hard right now and you might not be able to donate as before. Our hope is to continue to help as needed.
We currently have over 200 animals at the hospital--many will soon be released, but more come in nearly every day.
Wildlife rehabilitation is designated an 'essential service' by Wisconsin DNR Secretary Preston Cole, and Governor Evers, and Fellow Mortals continues to be available by appointment 7 days a week by appointment.
We are being safe, and keeping the people who bring us animals safe. There is no face-to-face contact between staff and the caring public, yet we can still receive animals into care.
The process: A person bringing an animal for care enters directly from outside into a negative pressure isolation room where the animal contained in a box will be kept warm and safe until the staff enters to take it out of the box. The triage room is on the other side of a door with a window that looks into isolation, so we are able to wave 'hi' to the animal finder, and watch as the person leaves the isolation area. After they leave, we enter to retrieve the animal and lock the outside door. We use gloves when handling containers and we have a disinfection protocol to protect the everyone using the shared space, which involves wiping down door handles and other contact surfaces between admissions, as well as using an ozonator to kill viruses in the air.
While we all adapt to doing our part to protect each other in the weeks and months to come--the wild ones remind us that there is a constant even in this time of uncertainty, and that Life & Hope still exist in the world.
Thank you, again, for all you do for the wild ones. We will keep in touch.
Yvonne, co-founder, Fellow Mortals Wildlife Hospital
"In healing, we are healed." tm
It started with the cranes—I heard the chuckling of their voices before I saw a squadron of six fly over the field. In the hours and days to come, the red-winged blackbirds’ chorus filled the air as suddenly as the sight of the males’ epaulets flashed in the weeds along the road. A single vulture wheeled lazily overhead and a mature bald eagle soared high—but not so high that his white head and tail could not be seen.
As humans retreated into their safe spaces and became less active and more crepuscular, the wild ones ventured further afield at times they would normally be the ones sheltering in place. The turkeys flocked and stopped to stare as a single car came down a rural road. A squirrel buried a nut in a pothole that would be accessible in a way not possible in a time when traffic never stopped. Crows gathered to converse in mid-day, their voices carrying and echoing across the silence.
Spring is here! The dull brown of sodden winter is perforated with shots of snowdrops and the first green shoots of grass—and for the first time in many of the wild ones’ lives—it is they who go forth without fear. Geese drift on endless water in open lakes and deer graze in open fields under the sun.
It’s a strange world in the spring of 2020. Humans are experiencing boundaries never imagined even a few weeks before—real boundaries necessitated by real threats that have caused us to change our behaviors accordingly. For the first time in most of our lives, we are experiencing a reality that the wild creatures have had to accept since humans entered their world.
The wild ones are free in a way they haven’t experienced before. This will be a special season for them.
Absurdly perhaps, my heart lifts at the hope that perhaps we humans will learn some important and lasting lessons from changing places with the wild ones of our world. As the waters clear and the cacophony of engines and talking and activity pause and allow the natural world to emerge and speak to our hearts—will we see that we have overstepped our place and resolve to allow the earth to heal by changing our ways?
Yvonne Wallace Blane
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