Wildlife Center dedicates new flight pen
The Wildlife Center of Virginia dedicated its new eagle flight pen on Thursday. Participating in the ribbon-cutting ceremony were Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Doug Domenech and Bob Duncan, director of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
The new flight pen is designed for rehabilitation and flight training by Bald and Golden Eagles, vultures, and hawks. The pen – labeled A-3 – is 89 feet long and 16 feet wide, measuring 23 feet at its highest point. Read more
Wildlife Center president honored
Ed Clark. Photo by Will Kerner
Eagle Rare Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey is today announcing that Ed Clark¸ President and Co-Founder of The Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro, has received the national 2012 Grand Prize Rare Life Award.
The Rare Life Award is given to an individual who “leads a rare life” of courage, leadership, survival, devotion, character, and heroism. Nominations were solicited through the Eagle Rare web-site; individuals could review the biographies of scores of nominees and vote for the most worthy recipients. According to Eagle Rare, Clark’s nomination received a recording-setting 180,000 supporting votes.
Seven finalists were selected from the top 20 vote-recipients. Clark is the Grand Prize award winner for 2012; as part of the Grand Prize award, Eagle Rare will donate $20,000 to the Wildlife Center. Read more
Wildlife Center treating poisoned bald eagle
On Wednesday, Jan. 11, the Wildlife Center of Virginia admitted a bald eagle – an adult bird – from Prince William County. The bird was picked up on Jan. 10 near Route 234 (between Manassas and Dumfries) and taken to the Village Veterinary Clinic in Burke. On Jan. 11, a volunteer transporter picked up the eagle and brought it to the Wildlife Center in Waynesboro.
Upon admission, the bald eagle was thin and showing classic symptoms of lead toxicity. A blood test confirmed that the bird was suffering from lead toxicity – at levels too high for the Center’s lead analyzer to read.
The Center’s lead-tester reads levels up to 0.65 parts per million. Studies have shown that lead levels of more than 1 ppm are lethal or linked with damage or destruction of the optic nerves. Read more
Chase Community Giving and the Wildlife Center of Virginia
Chase Community Giving is a philanthropic effort held by JPMorgan Chase in which charity projects will receive money in accordance to votes by the public on Facebook. The staff at the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro is encouraging friends, community members, and supporters to cast a vote for the Wildlife Center.
Voting is now under way, and ends on May 25th. The Center is one of only three Virginia organizations in the top 100 – the other two are the Norfolk Botanical Garden and the National Association for Music Education [headquartered in Reston].
This year’s spring program is the third installment of Chase Community Giving. On March 31, Chase announced a two-year, $25 million commitment to the Chase Community Giving program, which allows Facebook’s 500 million-plus users to choose from hundreds of thousands of charities and vote for them to win grants from Chase. More than 2.7 million Facebook users have “Liked” the Chase Community Giving page. Eligible charities included 501 (c)(3) charities with an operating budget from $1 million to $10 million.
Chase is giving out a total of $5 million through two rounds of online voting. In Round I, Chase gave $25,000 to 100 charities nationwide, based on votes cast through Facebook. The Virginia Wildlife Center was one of those 100 recipients – in fact, the center finished in the top 10 in the final nationwide voting.
In Round 2, these 100 organizations had the option to submit a “Big Idea” in 1,000 characters or less describing how they would use $500,000 to further its cause. Come charities also submitted a 30-second video and five photos demonstrating their “Big Idea.” Since May 19, Facebook users have been voting again to select the best ideas among the top 100 charities. The 25 charities that receive the most votes will receive between $20,000 and $500,000. The winners of Round 2 will be announced on May 26. The top vote-getter will receive $500,000; #2 receiving $400,000, et cetera.
A grant of $100,000, or $250,000, or $500,000 would make a world of difference to the Center. With that money the Center would improve housing for wildlife patients, build a new fly pen for eagles, hawks, and owls, a new area for baby birds, a waterfowl pen and more. Second, the Center would set up an online webcam network to share the activities of the animals with friends around the world. The wild animal patients will be on webcams that will give people the chance to watch eagles being prepared for release or bear cubs recovering from injuries, or turtles just being turtles.
Also with the $500,000, the Center would purchase much needed medical equipment to help the vets save even more lives. There will be new lighting for the surgical unit, a heated surgery table, a water tank for treating oiled and injured waterfowl and more.
Additional information is posted on the Wildlife Center’s website www.wildlifecenter.org/wp/2011/05/chase-community-giving/, including a video with Buddy [a Bald Eagle], a cartoon video about the Chase project, and a summary of how they would use the funds.
For more information on the Chase Community program, or to “like” the page and vote for the Wildlife Center, visit http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/.
Story by Suzi Foltz
Ruby wins disputed Wildlife Center vote
And the winner is … well, more on that in a minute.
The big news with the online poll to name the newest environmental ambassador at the Wildlife Center of Virginia in Waynesboro is that the effort was apparently hacked.
The votes – the legitimate ones, at least – eventually came down in favor of Ruby the Red-Tail. Ruby, a red-tailed hawk hit by a car in Dayton in February 2010, cannot return to the wild due to the severity of her injuries, and will travel with Wildlife Center staff to schools, libraries, and other public events and help share the steps that each of us can take to protect wildlife and the environment.
The Center in January asked local elementary schools to suggest a name, and came up with a list of 174 names that were later winnowed down to a final five. The polls opened online on Feb. 2 to pick the winner, but were closed on Feb. 19 after Center staff noticed irregularities, specifically robo-voting that cast more than 5,000 votes for the name Phoenix from a single overseas Internet service provider, including 3,021 in a six-hour period between midnight and 6 a.m. the morning of Feb. 19.
The purpose of the Center’s online contest was to seek the public’s views on the suggested names, especially from children, not to test computer hacking skills or the ability to rig an election. It’s unfortunate that someone takes pleasure from hacking into, and attempting to spoil, a contest in which so many schoolchildren and others have enjoyed participating,” Wildlife Center president and co-founder Ed Clark said.
Excluding the robo-votes, Ruby led the field with 35.3 percent of the legitimate votes cast, outpacing runner-up Twizzler, which received 25.6 percent.
Phoenix came in fourth with 15.3 percent once the robo-votes were discarded.
“The Wildlife Center is most grateful for the participation of local students and teachers and the more than 4,000 individuals who voted. And our appreciation is not diminished because a couple of people sought to cheat and spoil the contest,” Clark said.
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Poll: Help the WIldlife Center name the hawk
The polls are now open in the Wildlife Center of Virginia’s campaign to name a red-tailed hawk – a non-releasable hawk that will soon be visiting schools as one of the Center’s environmental ambassadors.
The Center is taking online votes in this Name-the-Hawk contest through Monday, Feb. 21, and everyone is encouraged to participate. To vote, visit www.wildlifecenter.org/wp/vote-hawk-name.
In January, the Wildlife Center, a leading teaching and research wildlife hospital located in Waynesboro, contacted 39 area elementary schools to ask students to provide suggestions for a name for the red-tailed hawk (the schools are in Augusta and Rockingham Counties and in Harrisonburg, Staunton, and Waynesboro). Students from 21 schools suggested more than 170 names, and five were chosen for the contest:
- Cherry Tail, suggested by Samantha Glick, a third-grader in Mrs. Rainey’s class at McSwain Elementary in Staunton. “A cherry on the stem reminded me of the hawk’s one eye. That’s what made me think of Cherry Tail,” said Glick.
- Phoenix, suggested by Mrs. Fulk’s fourth-grade class at Peak View Elementary (Penn Laird). “We thought of Harry Potter and Professor Dumbledore’s pet bird that rose from the ashes and saves people in need,” the class said in its suggestion.
- Poppy, suggested by Andrew Winfield, a fourth-grader in Mrs. Heizer’s class in Stuarts Draft Elementary. “Because poppies are red, and she is a red-tailed hawk.”
- Ruby¸ suggested by Mrs. Phelps’ first-grade class at South River Elementary (Grottoes). “We are currently studying Ruby Bridges. The kids thought since Ruby was a brave girl who fought to have a better life and since rubies are red, this would be a good name for a female red-tailed-hawk who also fought for her life.”
- Twizzler, suggested by Vinny Leo, a fourth-grader in Mrs. Quick’s class at Hugh K. Cassell Elementary (Augusta County). “Vinny’s idea is that Twizzlers are red, like the hawk’s tail.”
In addition to bragging rights, the school that suggested the winning name will receive a special visit from the hawk and Center staff.
The hawk was hit by a car in Dayton in February 2010 and admitted as a patient to the Wildlife Center – one of 45 red-tailed hawks treated at the Center during 2010. Upon admission, the Center’s veterinary team found a fracture in her left wing as well as severe trauma to her right eye. While her wing healed, her eye had to be surgically removed. With limited vision, the bird cannot see well enough to be released into the wild. Since May 2010, Center staff have been working with the hawk to determine her suitability as an education ambassador – a bird that would accompany Center staff on trips to schools, county fairs, and other public events.
At the Wildlife Center, patients are assigned numbers, but education animals are given names.
“Our education animals help students better understand our state’s wildlife and the steps each of us can take to protect wildlife and the environment,” said Amanda Nicholson, the Center’s director of outreach. “It’s such a treat for students to get to see a hawk or an owl or an opossum up close. We’re delighted that area students and the general public will help us name this hawk, who will become another special teacher at the Wildlife Center.”
Edited by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Help the Wildlife Center name its new hawk
The Wildlife Center of Virginia, a leading teaching and research hospital for wildlife, is enlisting the help of area elementary-school children in coming up with a name for a Red-tailed Hawk – an non-releasable hawk that will soon be visiting schools as one of the Center’s environmental ambassadors.
Earlier this month, the Wildlife Center contacted 39 area elementary schools to ask students to provide suggestions for a name for the Red-tailed Hawk [the schools are in Augusta and Rockingham Counties and in Harrisonburg, Staunton, and Waynesboro]. The hawk was hit by a car in Dayton, Virginia in February 2010 and admitted as a patient to the Wildlife Center. Upon admission, the Center’s veterinary team found a fracture in her left wing as well as severe trauma to her right eye. While her wing healed, her eye had to be surgically removed. With limited vision, the bird cannot see well enough to be released into the wild. Since May 2010, Center staff have been working with the hawk to determine her suitability as an education ambassador – a bird that would accompany Center staff on trips to schools, county fairs, and other public events.
At the Wildlife Center, patients are assigned numbers, but education animals (permanent residents) are given names. Thus far the Center has received several dozen entries from about 15 schools; the deadline for submission is January 31.
At the end of the month, Center staff will review the names suggested and winnow the list down to a few top choices. Those names will be posted on the Center’s website, and the winner will be determined by an on-line vote.
In addition to bragging rights, the winning school will also received a special visit from the hawk and Center staff.
“Our education animals help students better understand our state’s wildlife and the steps each of us can take to protect wildlife and the environment,” Amanda Nicholson, the Center’s director of outreach, said. “It’s such a treat for students to get to see a hawk or an owl or an opossum up close. We’re delighted that area students will help us name this hawk, who will become another special ‘teacher’ at the Wildlife Center.”
Additional information about the Red-tailed Hawk and this naming contest is available on the Center’s website at www.wildlifecenter.org.
The newly named hawk will join about two dozen hawks, owls, eagles, falcons, turtles and snakes that are part of the Center’s corps of education animals (permanent residents that, because of injuries or behavioral modifications, cannot be released back to the wild).
Other current members of this team of ambassadors are Scarlette (another Red-tailed Hawk); Junior (a Golden Eagle); Edie (an American Kestrel); and Wilson (an Eastern Box Turtle).
Edited by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
