Are you a nature lover? Interested in helping injured wildlife? This interview with Kari Henningsgaard, interim director of the Wildlife Center of the North Coast tells all about the center, volunteering and summer camps.
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Find me on my website: jan-johnson.com
Are you a nature lover? Interested in helping injured wildlife? This interview with Kari Henningsgaard, interim director of the Wildlife Center of the North Coast tells all about the center, volunteering and summer camps.
Subscribe to the Women of the Northwest podcast for inspiring stories and adventures.
Find me on my website: jan-johnson.com
[00:02] Jan: Are you looking for an inspiring listen, something to motivate you? You've come to the right place. Welcome to Women of the Northwest, where we have conversations with ordinary women leading extraordinary lives. Motivating, inspiring, compelling. I'm Jan Johnson, your host.
[00:28] Jan: Are you a nature lover? Are you interested in helping injured wildlife? This interview with Kari Hunningsgaard, interim director of the Wildlife Center of the North Coast, tells all about the center volunteering and summer camps. So here we go.
[00:46] Jan: Hello, listeners. Welcome to another episode. Today I have as a guest Kari Henningsguard. Hi.
[00:53] Kari: Hi.
[00:54] Jan: Nice to have you here today. Kari, you work at the Wildlife Center in Costa only, right? You just gave me a tour of that, and it was so interesting. I've never been out here before or to see any of that. And I live on a farm, but these are not the animals I'm used to seeing, other than maybe from a distance or something. So how do you get interested in being here?
[01:25] Kari: I've always had a fond appreciation for the outdoors and for wildlife, and I absolutely love it. But I first learned of the wildlife center while I was working in Cannon Beach at Haystack Rock for the Haystack Rock Awareness program. We were working out on the beach there, and we would frequently come across injured wildlife, injured birds on the beach. And so this was the place to bring them. So I would bring them out here. That's how I learned of the wildlife center. And my background is in conservation, in environmental.
[02:05] Jan: That was my next question.
[02:08] Kari: So seeing the work that they did out here, and it's just such a great organization. And I got involved volunteering, and so, yeah, that's kind of how I got started here.
[02:19] Jan: Nice. So you are now the new director, is that right?
[02:23] Kari: I'm the interim director.
[02:25] Jan: Okay.
[02:26] Kari: So there will be an official job posting and search, but per the succession plan, I'm taking over the interim director okay. Responsibilities right now.
[02:37] Jan: So there's probably a lot to learn yes. Besides the care of the animals and volunteering and all of that, but the administration avenue of that as well.
[02:49] Kari: Yeah. So it's a bit different from the work that I have been doing. I have been doing a lot of communications and marketing and website and stuff like that. So taking on the kind of oversight role and working closely with the board and working managing staff and that type of stuff is definitely different and new. But thankfully, I have really supportive people in both places.
[03:16] Jan: Yeah, that really helps, doesn't it? So you're not coming in like yeah.
[03:21] Kari: Supportive and competent too.
[03:24] Jan: So this is a nonprofit, and where do you get your funding from?
[03:29] Kari: So all of our funding comes from donations and grants, so we get no state or federal funding at all. So everything we get is truly just generosity from other people, whether it's individuals or foundations, but mostly individuals that just care about wildlife and care about our mission.
[03:49] Jan: Who have been some of the grant funding organizations that have helped you the most?
[03:53] Kari: Kinsman foundation helps us, and Oxen Foundation and Little Wangyang Trust. The Roundhouse Foundation are some of our funders.
[04:07] Jan: Yeah, great, because you need to have some that you can depend on a little bit, too. But even with grants, and that's got to be is it a renewable grant or you're going to have to rewrite. So there's all of that as well. And what's your base of your donors? Do you have an estimated amount of people that donate to you? Do you have an idea?
[04:31] Kari: Yeah, I mean, at least a couple hundred people we have regular contact with. I think we send out like 500 Christmas cards every year.
[04:43] Jan: Yeah, so that's a good yeah, a good average. So you have a little bit of a base there. What is the Wildlife Center's greatest need?
[04:51] Kari: Oh, gosh, our greatest need. We have so many.
[04:57] Jan: Besides money.
[04:59] Kari: Obviously, it costs a lot to feed the patients. I think we spend like $9,000 on food alone, just feeding our patients. So, honestly, funding our everyday animal care, funding the hospital is a huge need for us, but also maintaining our property and maintaining our outdoor enclosures because our patients and the wildlife is the center of our mission and our focus and our priority. There are other things that kind of fall by the wayside, some things maintenance wise and maintaining these enclosures that are outside all the time. Yeah. So that's a huge need for us all the time is help and even just volunteers, they are the heart of our program in so many ways.
[05:56] Jan: What are some things volunteers could do.
[05:59] Kari: Yeah, so we do have a core group of volunteers that come in and help in the Wildlife Hospital every week. And we've got some great volunteers. We're always accepting people that want to jump on an animal care shift, and they come in and they clean cages and they feed our patients, and they really keep the day-to-day operations running.
[06:20] Jan: I'd assume that there's some training with them.
[06:22] Kari: There is. So that's more of a commitment. But there are other volunteer opportunities that maybe don't take a day of your week every week
[06:30] Jan:, like a one and done or some maybe outdoor trail work or whatever.
[06:38] Kari: Yeah, exactly. So we also have a large network of rescue transport volunteers. And so since our service range, we do typically will help animals anywhere that are found on the Oregon coast from Astoria down to Newport.
[06:51] Jan: That's a long way.
[06:52] Kari: So we have volunteers that whole length that just help get patients to us, and some of them are comfortable rescuing. So we have volunteers that will go out on the beach, actually, and meet with whoever's found this animal that's calling us. Maybe they're on a beach in Lincoln City or something. We have people down there that will call, and they'll go down to the beach and they'll find this injured gull or whatever it is, and rescue it for us. But we have others that just drive. They just drive. They pick up patients from we have drop sites along the coast. The Cannon Beach Police Department is really kind to us. They'll let us stash birds in their waiting room. So we have volunteers that will just go there, pick up whatever needs to be picked up, and maybe they bring it to the Seaside Aquarium, which is our next stop, and then somebody will go there and they'll pick those up and they'll burn them to us. So that's a smaller commitment because we do have those short lengths that driving from maybe Nehalem, all the way up here is a big undertaking. But going from Cannon Beach to Seaside, it really works when we have more people.
[08:03] Jan: Right, okay. So are you mainly birds?
[08:08] Kari: So we're licensed to treat all native birds and most native mammals, but the majority of our patients do end up being birds just because of the nature of how animals are found in the wild.
[08:22] Jan: Yeah.
[08:23] Kari: So if you look at our patient logs, it's probably 90% birds and 10% mammals.
[08:29] Jan: What's your advice to the general public? They're finding a bird that's limping or whatever seems to be injured. What's their steps to get to you or what precautions should they take?
[08:43] Kari: Yeah, so the first step would be to call us if it's during business hours. So just based on funding and how we operate, we're able to answer the phones nine to five, seven days a week. But if it is during that time, please give us a call first, because every situation has nuances and every situation is different. But if it's outside of those hours and you do find a bird that you think is in need of help, it's always a good idea to keep some basic rescue supplies on hand in your car. If you're somebody that's out in nature all the time, what would you have in? So my little rescue kit is just a towel in a box, but some people like to have gloves to protect your hands, but just a towel in a box is sufficient. If you're able to collect the bird, the first step would be to cover it with a towel.
[09:35] Jan: Okay.
[09:35] Kari: That's going to kind of calm the bird down or the animal down, and it's going to protect both you and the wildlife. And once you have it covered, you can contain it and put it in the box. Okay. Make sure you cover the box. Don't peek at it or talk to it. I know it's so tempting, but you have to understand we're predators to these animals.
[09:58] Jan: Right.
[09:59] Kari: So an animal that's injured, that's already stressed out, any extra kind of talking or peeking or anything like that is going to stress out an already health compromised animal. So you want to put it in a box, keep it in a quiet, dark location, covered until you're able to get a hold of either us or your closest licensed rehabber, depending on where you are.
[10:29] Jan: What kind of mammals have you had?
[10:32] Kari: Yeah, I think it was two years ago. We called it the year of the mammals because we just got so many. But that year we had a river otter, some weasels, long tailed weasels, squirrels, chipmunks. We typically can do brush rabbits, mountain beavers.
[10:51] Jan: I found one at our house. It's like, what is this?
[10:56] Kari: Yeah, so those are some of the most common mammals that we get. I think river otter is uncommon. That was a special case. That was a fun one.
[11:09] Jan: Well, let's talk a little bit about your facilities that you have here. Walk us on a little tour around and help us visualize what's in each little location that you have.
[11:19] Kari: So, yeah, when you get to the wildlife center, the first building that you see is our main hospital. It's our main clinic. It's where patients, their first stop is they'll go into the clinic. We have a room that's just got cages of different sizes, enclosures in an exam room with an exam table, and a typical medical set up for medical facility. We've got a laundry room and a kitchen where we do diet prep. And depending on the time of year, it might or might not be filled with wildlife. How does the time of year affect it? Yeah, so we do get seasonal changes in the amount of wildlife that comes in the springtime. We will get a rush of baby birds. So the wildlife population grows in the springtime.
[12:13] Jan: Right.
[12:16] Kari: There's always going to be an uptick in patients in the springtime, whether that's because they're orphaned or because they fell from their nest and they're injured or what have you. Even then, after springtime, when these new wildlife animals are making their way out on their own, there is a portion of animals that don't do so good and they get caught up with the predator or whatever. They're new to the world. So that is really our busy time is from spring through the end of the year, we'll keep getting those birds in or wildlife in, whatever they may be. So our down season is really right now, we get like a month or two.
[13:07] Jan: Let's talk about the diets. What kind of food do you feed?
[13:13] Kari: Yeah, so it's definitely patient dependent, but our main food sources here are fish and rodents. Because we specialize in seabirds, fish is a staple food here. And we like to feed herring. It's a good size, it's a good nutritional content. It's not too oily or too scaly. They're easy to clean and handle. So herring is our top fish choice here.
[13:45] Jan: Where do you get them?
[13:48] Kari: We have a couple of different suppliers, but typically from the cannery okay. Yeah.
[13:55] Jan: So your rodents, are you raising rodents?
[13:58] Kari: No, we still have a rodent supplier.
[14:02] Jan: Yeah.
[14:03] Kari: So we've got a couple of different companies that sell us. They just come frozen, so mice or rats depend on the size of the bird. Okay.
[14:13] Jan: All right, let me ask you this. So you have one room set up for locations and then take one or, like, who manages that? Who is the doctor? Yeah.
[14:24] Kari: So we have two full time rehab staff, Ginger and Erica, and Ginger is our licensed rehabber. So we have to have a licensed rehabilitator on staff to operate for our permits, and that license is attached to an individual and not to our facility. So the Ginger is our licensed rehabilitator, and they are our rehab coordinator and oversee the hospital. So between the two of them, they really just oversee day to day operations, but always have support from their volunteers.
[15:01] Jan: What does it take to get a license to be a rehab?
[15:05] Kari: Yeah, so you have to take a test, studying and testing. Our permit recently changed from our outgoing executive director to Ginger, so I was able to kind of see the process. ODFW came in, administered tests, and Ginger passed and the license changed.
[15:24] Jan: Do you have an age range for volunteers?
[15:28] Kari: Yes. So 16 to 18. We do ask that they have a chaperone, parent or guardian that comes with them and then 18 to work directly with our patients for safety and insurance. Okay, so once we leave the main building,
[15:46] Jan: what do we have outside?
[15:48] Kari: So when you go outside and you will see our outdoor aviaries, we have 19 aviaries, I believe, and they all vary in size and habitat. So we've got a duckling enclosure, we've got sort of a seabird enclosure. We have enclosures that have more forest environments in them, and they all have enrichment and environments that kind of will keep the wildlife feeling sort of at home while they're here.
[16:26] Jan: Their home away from home.
[16:27] Kari: Yes, exactly. Yeah. And then we also have outdoor prerelease pools for pools that are outdoors. And those are where we will keep seabirds or birds that spend their life primarily on the ocean, on water. So rather than having them on ground, we will keep them in the water all the time, exercising their muscles, making sure they're fit to go live their life back out on the open ocean.
[17:01] Jan: Right, and so you do have some permanent residents for a couple of birds here. Tell us about boats.
[17:08] Kari: Yeah, so we have three education ambassadors that live with us full time. They are not releasable. They have different injuries that cause them to not be able to survive on their own out in the wild, but their quality of life is still good enough to keep them around, and they act as ambassadors for their species. They help our visitors make connections with wildlife. And so we have Cormy, our double crested cormorant, and Cormy came in as a baby in 2015, and she's lived here ever since. So she's really fond of people.
[17:48] Jan: Yeah.
[17:49] Kari: And so she's great fun for our visitors. And we actually relatively recently started Cormy Encounters, so you can actually sign up. And it's a paid experience to come with a group of your friends and meet Cormy and see a one on one.
[18:07] Jan: So you can actually go into the.
[18:08] Kari: Enclosure yeah, either into our enclosure or into our education center and get to watch a training session with her and her trainer. And we also do a spring festival. So our Spring Festival is coming up in May, and at our Spring Festival, you'll also get an opportunity to meet Cormy.
[18:29] Jan: And that's located here.
[18:31] Kari: Yeah, we'll have it here. So we're not open to the public. We don't have open public hours. But at our Spring Festival, we will open up, and anybody that wants to come is invited to come and get a tour, look around, see all these enclosures that I'm talking about, donate and meet our ambassadors. So aside from forming, we also have Nell. Nell is a new resident here with us. She came last October from a facility in New Mexico. She was transferred here, and yeah, she's a red tailed hawk, so we're still getting to know Nell, but she is here now at the wildlife center. So you'd be able to meet Nell if you came for our open house or Spring festival. And then we also have Odin, who is a Western screech owl, and she's been with us for a while. Odin came in as an adult, so she is not as fond of people as Cormy or Nell, but she still lives here and you are able to see her.
[19:40] Jan: And so when you said Cormy has a trainer, what kind of things does a train train her to do?
[19:46] Kari: Yeah, so Melissa is our licensed bird trainer, and she works with our education ambassadors overseas, their care, and works on training exercises with them. And she's always working on new stuff. But Cormy knows colors or me can take dollar bills from people and put them in a donation box.
[20:06] Jan: $100 bill?
[20:08] Kari: Yes. She actually prefers the larger denominations bills. That's her preference. But they know how to read the numbers. She also takes an active role in her care, so she gets on the scale and can get in her crate and close the door on her crate and stuff like that, too.
[20:30] Jan: Who knew that a Cormarin could be trained?
[20:32] Kari: She's quite smart and be so talented. Yes, which is why people like her. Which is why it's so fun to come here and meet her.
[20:41] Jan: Have some enclosures that are for your rodents or rodents, which a chipmunk would be. Right. Some of your mammals.
[20:51] Kari: We also have our education center, where we have a lot of education displays and things like that, so people can come and see and touch and feel a beaver pelt and different feathers and learn about stuff like that.
[21:06] Jan: So do you invite classes that come from school classes or home school?
[21:10] Kari: Yeah, we've had classes come through into our facility and meet our education ambassadors. We also do a summer camp every summer, so we'll have kids come out for a week of day camp. It's a nature based educational summer camp for kids where they get to kind of be outside and learn about nature and do all kinds of fun, hands on nature things. They, of course, meet our education ambassadors and learn about wildlife rehab, but also learn about our local environment, our plants, full experiments and stuff like that, too.
[21:52] Jan: That sounds amazing. What does it cost to come to camp like us?
[21:57] Kari: The tuition is $175 for the week. It's a day camp, so eight to noon. The kids can be here, but we do provide scholarships also. Nice.
[22:11] Jan: Yeah. How is the avian flu affected here?
[22:16] Kari: Yeah, so that's been difficult. So it's highly pathogenic avian influenza. Hpi is what we've been calling it, but it's very deadly to Raptors and Seabirds. And that showed up last late last spring. Summer, early summer. So we really had to switch gears and change the way that we were doing things, get a quarantine set up. We wanted to be super duper careful because we wanted to protect the patients that were in our care, but also our resident ambassadors that live here all the time. So this particular strain of avian influenza is really prevalent in waterfowl. So ducks and geese also in backyard livestock. So chickens and ducks and stuff that you might have in your backyard. And those birds are often asymptomatic, so.
[23:17] Jan: They don't show symptoms, which causes problems, because if you don't know exactly, but.
[23:22] Kari: The mortality rate in Raptors and Seabirds is quite high, upwards of 90%. And it can live on our shoes and it's really resilient. So we can carry it in from we can go to the park and get in our clothes and carry it in. So we really place measures to kind of help prevent that from coming into our facility. Our education ambassadors have safe spaces, and we're changing shoes before we're going into their enclosures and making sure we're cleaning areas a lot more frequently and stuff. But now that it's been a while and we know a lot more about it, we know a lot more about how the symptoms present themselves, we feel a little bit safer. We've been not accepting patients into the facility. If we get calls and it sounds like Hpi symptoms.
[24:21] Jan: Right.
[24:22] Kari: Our rehab staff have been setting these animals off site
[24:25] Jan: what are the symptoms?
[24:27] Kari: So neurologic symptoms is a big one. It kind of presents maybe like a cold in bird like neurologic or cold like symptoms and acting strange or funny or odd, but for no apparent reason.
[24:48] Jan: Yeah. Okay. Why do you feel so passionate about this work?
[24:55] Kari: Oh, gosh. Well, for one, I just have an absolute love for nature and wildlife. And I think it's just so special when you're out in nature and you're able to have an interaction with a wild animal, whatever that might be. Even if you're just on a hike and all of a sudden you see two eagles flying overhead. It's just that feeling right. That you get it's all inspiring. Yeah, exactly. And so it's hard not to care then, when you come here and you see these animals affected in some way negatively. And a lot of times it's a human related cause. Birds that might come in and maybe they're caught in fishing tackle or they've been hit by a car, and then it just really pulls at your heart. Right. Yeah. And you get really invested in helping just the individual animals. But the problem as a whole, educating people as to ways to make their house more bird friendly or to prevent these things from happening in the first place. So it's my heart.
[26:14] Jan: I can tell, though. What do you do in your spare time when you're not here 24/7? When you're only here 18 hours?
[26:25] Kari: Yeah, I have a puppy. She is a Cain Terrier, and she takes up a great deal of my time.
[26:32] Jan: Puppies. That's puppies do.
[26:34] Kari: Yes. Because she has all the energy in the world. And so when I'm not here, we're out on locks, going out in nature. As I'd mentioned before, I used to work at Haystack Rock for the awareness program there. So I still am very fond of going to the beach and going tide pooling and being in nature that way.
[26:54] Jan: Yeah. Well, Kari, thank you so much for sharing all of this. This was just very interesting. I'm sure our listeners are going to be delighted to find out about this and maybe even help donate and support you.
[27:07] Kari: That'll be great. Thank you so much for talking with me.
[27:10] Jan: You're welcome.
[27:15] Jan: I hope you enjoyed this episode. Wasn't it interesting hearing about Cormy? Who knew you could teach a corm rent tricks? I have a link in the show notes to the Wildlife Center, where you can find out more about volunteering or what to do if you find an injured animal. On a side note, my latest book, My Hearts for you, is now available on Amazon in Kindle and print. And my memoir I will enter his gates is now available on Audible. This was recorded by me and my son Kyle, who read his dad's part. I look forward to seeing you again next week.