December 2007

Muskoka Wildlife Centre Sponsors

We are incredibly excited about a new initiative here at our centre that will bring local businesses into the inner folds of the important work we do. As many of you know, the costs of supporting our resident animals can be overwhelming at best. We find that we are always struggling to cover all of our financial burdens. After running our Animal Adoption care sponsorship program for a few years we are finding that people are really enjoying being a part of our creature's lives. Many of the adoptive families and individuals visit their Wild Children regularly and the sponsorships have helped us provide food and veterinary care to approximately 30 of our 70 animal residents. The larger creatures we house are naturally more costly to care for than the smaller ones and we thought if we opened up sponsorship to businesses we could expand the program.

When sponsoring an animal for a year, in return, each business could receive a great deal of goodwill advertising; a link on our website in our MWC Sponsor section, their logo and business name beside the animal's information in the Animal Gallery section of our website, mention in our newsletter, a posted sponsorship certificate including their company name and logo at the individual animal's enclosure and a place on our MWC Sponsors Wall at the centre for our more than 40,000 annual visitors to see. Each business will be sent a framed picture of their Wild Child, a certificate of sponsorship and of course they will experience the incredible feeling of knowing they are contributing in such a significant way to an individual creature's life. Some businesses have covered the cost of sponsorship themselves and in other cases the staff of a business have pooled together to cover the cost. It also makes a great gift to someone else. If you are feeling very generous there is also opportunity for sponsorship of the building of much needed enclosures. We get several new animal residents every year and with their arrival comes the daunting task of raising the funds to house them comfortably.

We have a new section dedicated to Friends and Sponsors of the MWC on our website at www.muskokawildlifecentre.com. If you are a business owner or you work for a business that may be interested in this great opportunity please visit our website or contact us at the centre for more information.

With the holiday season fast approaching we hope you will consider giving to our creature friends here at the Muskoka Wildlife Centre.

News At the Centre

• Our centre was involved in another wild animal seizure this fall. We assisted the Ministry of Natural Resources in removing 8 creatures that were illegally kept by an individual without a provincial license. Permanent credible homes will hopefully be found for these creatures.

• We have a new resident owl here at our centre. We have named her Luna and she is a Saw-whet owl. She was found injured in a backyard near Peterborough. Read her story belowe.

• We also received a young fisher named Mike Fisher (any Ottawa Senators fans will appreciate his name) from the Ottawa area. He was found as an infant in the forest by hikers and was taken to a wildlife rehabilitation centre to be raised. Unfortunately he was very young and alone (fishers are not commonly brought to rehab centres as babies) and became overly accustomed to humans as a result. It was determined that he could not be released because he lacked any fear of humans and identified people as a source for food. He has been with us for some time now and is adjusting to his new life here quite well. We are sad that he can not return to the wild but happy that he can at least help us teach the public more about his vilified kind. We desperately need funds to put towards a permanent enclosure for this active member of the weasel family.

• Fall has come to an end and what a beautiful fall it was. Please remember to visit us in the winter on weekends. Come see the animals playing in the snow with big bushy coats. We need your support more than ever this year.

• We are also trying hard to raise funds to build more suitable housing for Hawksley our broad-winged hawk and Apollo our young peregrine falcon as they are fairly new residents and need bigger permanent spaces to stretch their wings.

• Kootenay the black bear's dumpster testing trials went very well. The footage can be seen on video at our blog site  . Remember to keep your garbage properly secured at all times. The local Tyedee Bin company, as a thank you for allowing them to test their bins with our bear and raccoons, will be supplying our centre with animal proof garbage containers for our trails next spring. You can visit them on the internet at www.tyedeebin.com

• Renard our young red fox can now be seen on display in our fox/raccoon enclosure on the trail. Frosty our silver fox has unexpectedly come out of retirement after a spell of poor health. We thought he was approaching the end of his life at the age of 10, but he is feeling great again and can be seen playing (and resting) with Renard our red fox.

Creature Feature - Saw-Whet Owl

If you are out for a walk in the forest at night and feel like you are being watched? maybe you are being watched by this tiny bird of prey. The saw-whet owl is the smallest owl found in Ontario, weighing a mere75-100 g, the weight of a small cell phone and standing the height of an apple. They were named for a sound they make which sounds like a saw being whet (sharpened). They have an asymmetrical skull making their head look somewhat misshapen.

The saw-whet owl is a mighty hunter, killing whatever they can, whenever they can. The saw-whet's favorite meals are made up of mice, voles, moles and shrews but they will also eat insects, song birds and amphibians. When prey is plentiful this owl will store up food. They will kill much more than they need and store their extra kills for later. When prey becomes scarce during winter they have some in cold storage and will find the hidden food, sit on it (much like they would incubate an egg), until it thaws and presto, one owl t.v. dinner.

Like most owls these birds are active at night (nocturnal) and have excellent night vision. They sleep during the day, usually close to the ground and rely heavily on their camouflaged colours when hiding. When they feel threatened or sense danger during the day they will elongate their bodies and as a result look like a tree branch stump (see above).

The saw-whet owl is a solitary bird, only pairing up during breeding season (usually between March and May). Females are significantly larger than males but are otherwise coloured the same. While the mother bird sits on her 3-7 eggs, the male does the grocery shopping and keeps mom fed. Young owlets take 4-5 weeks to fledge and are only cared for by their parents for a few weeks following fledging. After that, they must fend for themselves. They may live only 3 or 4 years in the wild, but have lived over 8 years in captivity.

These petite predators inhabit coniferous and deciduous forests, with thickets and shrubbery. They live is forests where woodpeckers have created cavities for nest sites.

The Story of Luna

Recently a saw-whet owl joined our family after running into some trouble in the wild. We do not know what happened to the little owl but she was found by a caring individual in a backyard near Peterborough, Ontario. She was injured and unable to fly. She may have hit a clothesline or hydro wire when in a chase with prey. Lori Hawkins was her rescuer and was kind enough to catch her and bring her to a local veterinarian for help. It was determined that her shoulder would never be the same again and she would never have the ability to hunt for herself. She was deemed unable to survive in the wild and we were given a call. Our facility will often take in un-releasable animals and assess them for the possibility of a life in captivity as an alternative to euthanasia. Most animals that have lived in the wild as adults can not live comfortably in captivity because they are too fearful of people. In this little owl's case, she exhibited no obvious signs of fear and is quite young. We agreed to give her a chance and she has been here now for a few weeks. So far, so good,  Luna is eating well and if all goes well we will start spending more time with her, teaching her to sit on the glove. Eventually, we hope that Luna will join our education team and help teach people more about her kind. We were so very pleased to hear from Luna's rescuer Lori , shortly after receiving the tiny owl. Lori offered to help with any costs related to Luna's care and now Lori is the proud new foster mother of the owl. She has adopted the care of  Luna for an entire year. Thank you Lori for all you have done. Wish  Luna luck in her progress.