By: Mike O’Malley, Executive Director
March 3, 2023
Please go easy on us. As the wildlife “baby season” approaches each year, we as Wildlife Rehabilitators are onboarding new volunteers, stocking up freezers with formulas and foods, running events to gather more supplies, and so much more.
We have to be prepared to take in 100+ animals per day during peak season. There’s also something else we have to prepare for that cannot be purchased or donated. We have to prepare for; misdirected frustration, anger, and even verbal abuse at times. While the overwhelming majority of folks that bring us injured and/or orphaned wildlife are incredibly kind and grateful to have us as a resource, others are not always so gracious. Please remember that Cedar Run and other similar wildlife facilities exist purely to protect and preserve our native wildlife.
We receive no governmental funding of any kind. We choose to keep our doors open because the mission of Cedar Run means so much to us, and we wake up every day hoping to save as many lives as possible. Please know that our facility only has 3 full-time salaried employees. Our behind the scenes operating hours for 6 months of the year are 14+ hours a day. We hope that you’ll remember that if you encounter someone when you call that may need to put you on hold to get better answers, that person is most likely 1 of over 200 volunteers donating their time to try to help save wildlife with us.
In 2022, our Wildlife Hospital responded to over 17,000 phone calls, that’s an average of almost 50 phone calls every single day of the year. As much as we would love to provide one-on-one detailed updates about every animal dropped off to Cedar Run, that’s simply impossible with our time and resources. We do our best to give every finder a status update when requested, but we cannot provide details or hold phone calls with over 6,000 wild animals coming through our facility annually. Finding an injured and/or orphaned animal can be shocking, emotional, and even scary. Please know that our main goal is to help you AND the wildlife in need of help. We are all trying our best, but please be patient and a bit forgiving, if necessary. Our staff and volunteers are here to support the mission of Cedar Run, even if that means working in extreme temperatures, working daily with animals that have experienced massive trauma, staying late into the night, and being back early in the morning.
We are here working 365 days year, the need for our services and the animals in need of care need us every single day. As much as we would love to be wildlife saving machines, we are humans. We are not exempt from the stress of saving lives; we get upset, sad, and worn out as well. Our promise is to keep our doors open to serve the community and the wildlife that is counting on us. We hope that you can promise to be kind. We love our work and are incredibly grateful for your support. If you’d like to make a donation to support our work or even sign up to volunteer your time, please visit us at CedarRun.org!
