BRADENTON BEACH – One year after the Wildlife Inc. Education and Rehabilitation Center was devastated by two hurricanes, the center is back to full operation.
“We’ve had 900 plus (animals) this year,” co-founder Gail Straight said. “That’s under what we normally have.”
Straight, who founded the non-profit animal rehabilitation facility with her husband, Ed, 35 years ago, did what she could following the 2024 storms that flooded not only the center, but their attached home.
“We never really closed completely. People would call me on my cell phone for some animals,” she said. “I stayed with a friend on Gulf Drive, and I came back and forth and I brought some of the babies there.”
Straight said the storms destroyed everything in their home and facility.
“We lost everything but our dining room table,” she said. “All the shelves and things now are brand new. The appliances were donated by the Rotary Club.”
When the rehab facility put out a recent call for volunteers through their website, www.wildlifeinc.org, and their Facebook page, they were swamped with those wanting to help.
“We don’t need more volunteers right now because we have 50 applications to go through,” Wildlife Inc. volunteer Gale Tedhams said. “We put something on our Facebook page and people started responding.”
Tedhams said for anyone who would like to help the facility, there is always a wish list posted on their website.
“There’s a wish list for Amazon and there’s a way to donate on the website,” she said. “So, when we run out of something or need more of a certain kind of food or something we change up the requests.”
Straight said the non-profit facility relies primarily on donations.
“We’re getting a couple of grants, but they’re getting harder and harder to get,” Straight said.
“Really only donations,” Tedhams said. “We don’t have any government help.”
Tedhams said they would like to find someone with a large property who would allow some of the rehabbed animals to be relocated there.
“We’ve got lots of bunnies, lots of squirrels, lots of raccoons,” she said. “We are looking for people with property particularly out east where we can bring the animals.”
Wildlife Inc. serves all of Manatee County.
Many of the animals’ injuries are caused by being struck by vehicles, rat poison getting into the food chain, outdoor cat attacks and glue traps.
“Athena is great horned owl. She can’t be released and goes to shows with us,” she said. “When she was in a nest with her family, her mom brought a rat back to the nest and it had rat poison in it, it killed them all except for her, but it did take out her eye, because rat poison causes internal bleeding. It’s a horrible way to die and it gets into the food chain, that’s the problem.”
Tedhams would also like to have people discontinue using glue traps.
“Glue catches other things,” she said. “When birds get on them, it takes the feathers off, or some animals will chew a limb off to try to get out. Rat poison and glue traps we’re totally against.”
One of the center’s cages is filled with baby squirrels.
“We had probably at least 50 squirrels,” Tedhams said. “People trim their trees during nesting season, and then the nest falls on the ground, and they fall out. They trim their palm trees down to nothing, and they end up with a bunch of squirrels.”
She said outdoor cats are a real nemesis to small animals such as squirrels.
The center is aware of an injured blue heron that’s been on the beach for about two months.
“He’s got a hook in his leg, but he can fly so we’ve tried to catch him many times and haven’t been able to,” Tedhams said. “We’ve gotten a lot of calls about him.”
Anyone who finds an injured animal can call the center at 941-778-6324 or transport the animal directly to the facility at 2207 Ave. B, Bradenton Beach.
“We prefer them to bring them, but if they can’t for some reason, we’re building up our volunteers to help transport animals,” Tedhams said.
