The Alberta Institute of Wildlife Conservation has settled into their "Forever Home" but the group still needs thousands of dollars to meet their fundraising goal.
Back in 1993, the AIWC moved to its current location just outside of Madden, AB where they purchased the piece of land in May 2015, relieving thoughts they may have to move.
"We were very fortunate to have a donor donate money to us at the very end of last year and that provided a down payment," says Holly Duval, AIWC Executive Director. "We've been in limbo for the past couple of years of whether or not we could stay on this land which we were semi-renting or if we had to move to an entirely new location."
With support from Dr. Khuong of Deerfoot Meadows Dental, the AIWC was able to put a significant down payment on the land and get a mortgage for the property which they are still fundraising to pay off.
"We no longer have to move so that saves us hundreds of thousands of dollars right there and we can continue operations without a break in service," adds Duval. "We are a non-profit, we don't have guaranteed income and the donors have agreed to match funding up to an additional $250,000."
Launching their Forever Home campaign on May 7th, the AIWC had raised $259,000 excluding the matching money which is approximately $60,000 at the moment. With a fundraising goal of $750,000 the AIWC knows that it will be a long road until the land is paid off, but are thrilled that they can stay in Madden and continue to help local wildlife in the region.
"We are a wildlife hospital, so we're actually accredited as a vet hospital and we're dedicated to taking in injured or orphaned wildlife."
"We're entirely non-profit and we survive through donations by the public and our goals are to rehabilitate wildlife. We take over 1,600 animals every year and 95 percent of those come in as a result of human conflict."
Duval says the majority of those human conflicts include animals being hit by cars, colliding with power lines or being injured or caught by a cat or dog. Every animal that the AIWC brings into the facility, they hope to release back in the wild.
Although the AIWC heavily relies on public support as a non-profit, they aren't open to the public due to the added stress it would put on the wildlife but do offer tours and presentations to its members to keep the community in the loop.
"Wildlife are our focus, we don't want to add any stress to them but we also do want to appreciate our members and members of the public that do support us and give them a behind the scenes look at what we do."
The next upcoming AIWC Talk and Tour will be on October 18th, reviewing the summer and sharing some stories about animals that they've rehabilitated.
Duval says that being known within the community helps them effectively do their job while also ensuring that more wildlife have a chance at rehabilitation no matter the cost.
"It takes an awful amount of money to rehabilitate individual animals, it can be anywhere from $100 to over a $1,000 depending on the injuries and so forth."
"The more that we're known in the communities that we serve, the more wildlife we will help, a lot of wildlife is still found and people don't know what to do with them because they don't know that we exist or other rehab centres like the Calgary Rehab so we really do want to create awareness so that more wildlife are saved."
Bradley Jones - aidrienews@goldenwestradio.com
Thu, May 2, 6:00 PM
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