The Cape Wildlife Center is located on a five-acre preserve
adjoining the Great Salt Marsh in West Barnstable,
Massachusetts. The facility was generously donated to The HSUS
by Barbara and Dave Birdsey in 1995. Before then, it was used
to provide rehabilitative care to wildlife in need under the
name of Orenda Wildlife Trust.
Under the leadership of HSUS wildlife experts, and in
conjunction with the experienced wildlife rehabilitators of
Cape Cod, the center held true to the mission of rehabilitation
but expanded that mission to include on-site emergency
veterinary care for wildlife. Experts from other wildlife
centers as well as The HSUS collaborated in redesigning the
wildlife-care buildings so they would be as suited to emergency
and fundamental veterinary care as they were to rehabilitative
care. The outdoor habitats and indoor wards have been improved
over the years, in keeping with expanding knowledge within the
wildlife rehabilitation field. Up-to-date veterinary facilities
and equipment help us to provide outstanding medical and
surgical care for our wildlife patients.
From 1995 to 1999, the center was open April through October
each year. In response to the ever-growing number of animals
brought in, the center stayed open until December in 1999 and
saw a 25% increase in patient admissions for the year. The
center has been open year-round since January of 2000, and the
number of patients admitted continues to rise steadily.
The student externship program, which provides wildlife-care
training to a growing number of undergraduate, veterinary, and
veterinary technology students, accepted its first students in
1997. Students come to the center from across the United States
and abroad. Likewise, the volunteer program, critical to caring
for our wildlife patients and orphans, has continued to expand
in numbers and dedication.
People in the region have become increasingly aware of the
center, looking to our staff to help them solve their conflicts
with—or simply answer their questions about—wildlife. So many
calls poured in at all hours of the day and night, that it
became clear that the community needed a hotline service to
tell Cape Cod residents and visitors how to peacefully and
humanely resolve conflicts with wildlife. Each year more
people, and the wild animals with whom they were having
conflicts, have been helped through the concepts of tolerance,
understanding, and exclusion. The success of this effort
inspired the establishment of our Conflict Resolution Program,
which reaches out to the community through presentations,
lectures, and workshops.
The Wildlife Advocacy Program was inaugurated in 2001 to
meet wildlife's growing need for advocacy and habitat
protection. Although it is essential to work directly with
individual members of the Cape Cod community to solve specific
conflicts with specific wildlife, implementing long-term
solutions for all of Cape Cod is best achieved through humane,
sustainable public policy, and that is what our Wildlife
Advocacy Program works toward. Our wildlife advocate works with
federal, state, and local officials to support humane public
policy to benefit wild animals, their habitats, and the people
who live here.
As we learn more about the needs of the human and wildlife
residents of Cape Cod, the center continues to grow, providing
an ever-increasing range of services and sowing humane and
caring attitudes towards wildlife.
