Richmond Wildlife Center

Updated March 2024

Help us build a dedicated veterinary hospital specifically for sick, injured, and orphaned native wildlife as well as feral exotic pets found abandoned in the wild within the Greater Richmond area and surrounding counties.

The Richmond Wildlife Center is a 501c3 charitable organization. If you choose to support us, you are donating directly to the Richmond Wildlife Center, and your donations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.

 

To ensure we receive 100% of your donation without deductions for processing fees checks can be mailed to Richmond Wildlife Center, P.O. Box 14694, Richmond, VA 23221. We can also accommodate stock transfers. Please contact us for more information on donating your stocks to the Richmond Wildlife Center. We will add all donations received outside of the gofundme platform by check or stock transfer to our contributions received here on Gofundme so everyone can watch our progress towards our goal. Please let us know if you would like your donation to remain anonymous. Donating through Gofundme will deduct 2.2%+0.30 from your donation.

 

No donation is too small. Come back as often as you desire to donate $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, or more. Every donation adds up and gets us closer to our goal.

 

The Richmond Wildlife Center is a nonprofit wildlife facility dedicated to the treatment and rehabilitation of critically sick, injured, and orphaned native wildlife. In addition, we assist abandoned exotics pets found sick and injured in the wild. We have been the only dedicated facility in the Greater Richmond and surrounding counties who have veterinarians and permitted wildlife rehabilitators working together under the same roof from the admission of the wild animal patient, managing the animal's care in house together, through the eventual release of the wild animal back into the wild. Having veterinarians and permitted wildlife rehabilitators working together in the same building from admission of the animal to its eventual release, reduces the stress of wild animals being transferred amongst so many various parties. Stress is the number one killer of wildlife. Stress occurs from the sounds of children, TV, music, conversations, vaccuuming, telephones, possible cigarette smoke/vaping, candles, incense, air fresheners, the smell and sounds of predatory pets such as cats and dogs, multiple car rides to be transferred between various parties such as to or between the private homes of wildlife rehabilitators, amongst the general public who rescue a wild animal, animal control picking up wild animals in the field and riding the animal around in the truck for hours as they continue with other calls for service, local veterinarians with little true experience in wildlife medicine and rehabilitation who are just doing their best to try to help an animal and a client and no separate stress-free space for wildlife or necessary supplies. All of these stressors and more reduce the chances of a wild animal surviving rescue and captivity to even have a shot at a full recovery and opportunity to return home to the wild with a great chance of survival upon release.

Having a dedicated, fully equipped facility that is available from the moment an animal is rescued to immediately admit that animal will reduce that animal's handling time by people and shorten the transport time between the moment an animal is found to the time it receives qualified skilled technical help. Such a facility is how we all can provide the very best outcomes for the wildlife that need help and rescue. Our goal is to provide the best veterinary and rehabilitative care possible to these animals in hopes of returning native wild animals back home to the wild with a great chance of survival as well as finding loving, qualified homes and facilities for the exotic pets we assist.

 

 

Beyond helping the animals we admit directly, our dedicated wildlife center helps our community by protecting public health and safety. We monitor trends in our patient admissions. We can report areas in our community prone to wildlife-vehicle collisions to VDOT. We provide disease surveillance to the community, reporting instances of West Nile Virus to local public health departments. We can monitor areas for outbreaks of canine distemper in skunks, raccoons, foxes, coyotes, mink, and otter and alert dog owners in the outbreak area to ensure they are vaccinating their pets for canine distemper to help protect both pets and wildlife. We can monitor heavy metal toxicity cases and determine if a trend is occurring, suggesting any geographic areas of concern. We can alert authorities to any sudden mass wildlife casualties originating in an area that may concern public health and wildlife officials. We can monitor and report wildlife crimes, including many that place human lives at risk. Our services go beyond just helping the individual animal, we are assisting both human and animal populations within the ecosystem. These are services that local in-home wildlife rehabilitators and general veterinarians who assist those wildlife rehabilitators are ill-equipped to provide.

 

As of March 2024 we have assisted more than 5,300 animals since our opening in April 2013. We have been operating with significant limitations in building and cage space, financial constraints, and qualified, technically skilled human resource constraints relying on a staff of volunteer veterinarians, wildlife rehabilitators, and care assistants, with only one paid full-time staff member. We focus on ethical, humane, and quality care for each animal we admit. Significant constraints with building and cage space availability, veterinary treatment and surgical space, dedicated team members with existing advanced skill-sets in wildlife medicine and rehabilitation, facility space to accommodate the volume of volunteers we need, as well as dedicated physical space for administrative staff to answer calls for assistance has hindered our ability to assist the people and the animals they rescue over the years. We have only been able to assist a fraction of the animals and rescuers who need our services, leaving many frustrated as they are looking for help.

 

We receive more than 11,000 phone calls and emails annually from the general public needing our assistance with wild animals and exotic pets that they have found sick, injured or orphaned and in need of our assistance. We have only been able to assist a fraction of the animals who need us to date. Our capacity issues have left callers, supporters, the public, veterinary hospitals, animal control officers, and conservation officers frustrated with us because our historically small facility (less than 700 square feet of medical space which was reduced to 208 square feet by 2019) fills up fast. When we reach the maximum capacity of around 50 to 60 animals in house at any given time, we are unavailable to help additional rescuers and the animals they find and sometimes even unavailable to answer phone calls because we are tending to a full facility of intensive care patients. If we had a larger facility, we could assist 3,000 – 5,000 animals each year instead of the roughly 300 animals we can only accommodate ethically and humanely each year.

 

 

It’s time to expand! It’s time to work towards being able to help every caller and animal who needs us. It’s time to build a future for wildlife who need us. We can only do that with your financial support.

 

 

Strategic Plan:

Phase 1 financial goal will cover:

*land survey, assessments, architectural renderings & review

*Fees associated with county permitting process for zoning and other ordinances

*purchase of a mobile modular unit for temporary hospital use with paid veterinary and rehabilitative staff members to continue to offer wildlife medicine and rehabilitative services within the community as we continue to raise funds for construction of building

*relocation of current outbuildings and enclosures to new property

*construction of enclosures, electricity, plumbing, driveway, and other property and building construction

 

 

Phase 2: A hospital for wildlife!

In phase 2 we will begin construction of a formal wildlife hospital. We will continue to operate out of the modular mobile unit while construction of the new hospital is underway.

 

 

Phase 3: Education

Phase 3 of our long-term strategic plan will provide for a separate dedicated building and acreage on our property for educational purposes that will be open to the public.

**Please note the below video was made prior to 2019. As of our move in 2019, the Richmond Wildlife Center has not operated as a licensed veterinary facility. We have been utilizing a mobile veterinary license/service and space within a local veterinary hospital to provide services to our patients. We will not seek Board of Veterinary Medicine licensure again until we purchase our own property and relocate.**

 

 

 As counties continue to develop previously undisturbed lands, the need for our services will only increase. You can help us assist all of the animals who need us by donating today.

 

Let’s build a future for the wildlife who need us today! Help us build a hospital for wildlife.

 

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or requests for more information. You can visit us on the web at richmondwildlifecenter.org