Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2016 - 30

You never know what's going
to happen when you walk into
the Dan and Diane May Wildlife
Rehabilitation Center. I had to
stop in to meet a group touring
the facility as part of my to-do
list for the Lees-McRae Communications Department, and
ran into the director of the center
carrying a baby bobcat that had
been found near railroad tracks.
Through the nearby glass viewing
window I watched a goose get
acupuncture.
The center is the only rehabilitation center on a college campus
in the United States. For the
students, it acts as a hands-on
learning laboratory.
"They get to know the animals inside and out working with them
on a daily basis," says Director
Nina Fischesser, "and that gives
our students an advantage when
they go to apply for a job."
Every year more than 1,400
injured animals are treated there
including raptors, waterfowl, reptiles and small mammals from
across Western North Carolina.
The center sees more songbirds
than other centers, because many
can't handle the requirements.
"Songbirds are just a lot more
challenging," says Fischesser.
"They are very labor intensive.
For instance, chimney swifts
have to be fed every 30 minutes
during the day while they are in
captivity."
Visitors can get a peek at the animals and the stages of rehabilitation through weekly presentations open to the public.
"Animals are always coming in
and out. It's always interesting
to see what's happening in the
emergency room," says Fischesser.
For more information: lmc.edu
-Allison Andrews

30 BlueRidgeCountry.com

Jaime L. SaJecki, VDGiF

STUDENTS HELP SAVE
WILDLIFE AT LEESMCRAE COLLEGE

Bears, such as the one in top photo just outside the Charlottesville, Virginia home of Lisa Powley,
and the one below in a more wooded setting, are more and more prevalent, having grown in population by about 10 percent per year in Virginia, for example, between 2000 and 2010.

doah National Park and other wildlife refuges, reversion of abandoned
farm fields back to forests, and restrictions on hunting. From 2000
to 2010, Sajecki says, Virginia bear
populations grew almost 10 percent each year; there are now about
17,000 statewide, mostly in the
mountains and the Great Dismal
Swamp on the southeastern coast.
Sajecki, who helped Powley
and her Free Union neighbors understand why they were seeing so
many bears, is often frustrated by
the number of people who leave
food outside and expect the animals to keep their distance. Bears,
she points out, are "amazing, adaptable and incredibly intelligent"
creatures that simply prefer not to
work too hard for their supper.
"If you're a 200-pound animal,

you may spend an entire day getting the calories that you need
from ants or from vegetation," Sajecki says. "Or you could go into
somebody's yard and knock over a
bird feeder and have all the calories you need in three minutes and
then nap the rest of the day. It's
the same as going to a fast-food
restaurant."
Bear management, she insists,
is a shared responsibility. "You
don't leave your purse on the
porch or where it can be seen in
your car," she says. "You bring
your belongings inside so people
won't steal them. But I see it more
and more, where people just want
the wildlife taken away. Well, that
doesn't solve any issues and it really doesn't help the bear, and it
doesn't help the person."

http://www.lmc.edu http://www.BlueRidgeCountry.com

Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country - November/December 2016