Funding
With animals more then ever before
requiring our help, the shelter is in constant need of feed, housing and
medical care for it’s occupants.
No government funding is available
to assist with ensuing costs. Grants received by companies
and organizations are usually project specific and can not
be used to cover ongoing expenses such as listed below.
Therefore the shelter relies solely
on private and corporate sponsorships. All board members are
working as volunteers. Moneys and goods raised for the shelter
are being used exclusively for the care and well-being of
the animals. There are a number of aspects that need to be
addressed when caring for wildlife:
• Adequate feed
and housing for the various species :
A wide variety of feed is required, such as meat,
fish, fresh vegetables and fruit, grain and milk-replacers. Obviously
a bear requires different housing than a moose. It is the shelters aim
to provide housing as close to a natural environment as possible in order
to provide the best preparation for a return to the wild
• Medical care
:
Veterinary care is often required to deal with starvation,
broken bones or open wounds
• Intensive care for
very young or severely ill animals:
Young and sick wildlife requires extensive care. Facilities have to be
sanitary and provide adequate heat and resting area for the animals
• Transportation
and capture of animals in need:
With dwindling
governments funds and resources, the shelter has now also taken on most
of the capture of wildlife in need. For that life-traps of various sizes
are needed, as well as volunteers to transport animals.
• Relocation of
rehabilitated animals to their original region:
In accordance with the permits issued to the shelter,
animals are to be released in the region of origin. That means that a
bear from Penticton or the sunshine coast has to be transported back to
those regions and within the region has to be brought to suitable release
areas. While transporting a bear to the shelter when very young is relatively
easy, transporting a large bear back to those regions is much more complicated.
Proper transportation boxes are required, volunteers have to donate time
to physically move these animals and funds for gas, food and lodging have
to be secured. Especially with bears, often in the region, helicopters
are required to transport animals into remote areas. There for the release
costs are often higher that the costs accrued raising the bear for a year.
• Educating the public:
We strongly believe that all our work has little
impact if we don’t share our knowledge and can evoke the compassion in
our fellow men. It is therefore a high priority to educate interested
individuals or groups. There is a high demand for presentations through
groups ( such as Rotary or Lions Club) and from schools (for in class
presentations) To provide such lectures volunteers are needed to offer
the courses, funding is required to provide a slide presentation, posters
and other education oriented means.
• Machinery:
In order to care for the animals a certain amount of equipment
is essential. We need a Vehicle to pick up the daily food
donations in town (a daily roundtrip of 30km) as well as to
rescue and release wildlife. As our shelter is situated in
the very back of our property (approximately 1km away from
our house) we need transportation to bring the food to the
animals several times each day. In the summer this is done
with an ATV and I the winter with a snowmobile. In order to
process donated carcasses (to feed the meat eaters among our
guests) we need a frontend loader on the tractor (the tractors
use has been generously donated by Mountain View Adventures).
Maintenance and replacement of these essential machineries
is an ongoing need.
• Insurance
Our permits require us by law to carry 2 Million Dollar liability
insurance. Yearly cost for this is currently $2500.
Contact us for more
info
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