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In a photo from last April, Ed Clark of the Wildlife Center of Virginia readies a rehabilitated bald eagle that had been found in King George for release at Caledon Natural Area. |
ONE of the Virginia
The Waynesboro hospital for native wildlife--its mission is "teaching the world to care about and to care for wildlife and the environment"--was created and is run by Ed Clark, whose devotion to wildlife is reflected in the center's advocacy for animals.
Along with executive vice president and spokesman Randy Huwa, Clark took some time recently to share a few high-tech projects the center is working on, as well as details of a recent success story of an eagle rescued March 19 from near Callao in Northumberland County, most likely after being hit by a vehicle.
Through some intensive rehabilitation at the Wildlife Center, the young eagle was able to be released April 3 at the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge near Warsaw in Richmond County.
Clark and Huwa said the connection the Center now has with thousands of animal lovers through an injured eagle, a Web camera and the Internet has them thinking about the potential to expand that in the future.
The bird in question was an eaglet hatched at the Norfolk Botanical Garden in 2008 that created a worldwide following through its online appearances on what was dubbed "Eagle Cam."
Born with avian pox on its beak, the animal the Wildlife Center refers to as #08-0887 was admitted there for treatment in May of 2008.
In August of last year, Center officials announced that the eagle could not be released back into the wild because of damage the pox had caused to the beak.
Both Clark and Huwa, however, noted that it was amazing to see how many people all over the world became deeply connected to the bird that followers dubbed "Buddy" and its malady through the Web camera.
"That connection followed the eagle here to the Wildlife Center," said Clark. He noted that staff has provided regular updates and photos online to let the followers know how their "Buddy" is doing as medical treatment continues and training is being done to possibly prepare him for contact with humans as an education animal.
Huwa said he made an effort to regularly sample the messages that went back and forth among members of the new online community, and was struck by how concerned and committed these people were to a bird they'd seen only online.
Said Clark, "It would be foolish to see this and not consider how we might use something like this to connect people to animals being treated or rehabilitated here. We're taking a serious look at what we might do."
Another high-tech project involves a Center initiative that began with a $166,000, six-month contract with the Institute for Defense and Homeland Security, a consortium of university, industry and federal research and development partners.
The idea behind the project was simple: If there are are bioterrorism or biosecurity threats to our country, one of the first places they could be detected and analyzed is in wildlife.
Beyond that, said Clark and others after the project, having real-time information about illnesses and injuries suffered by animals all over the country would be invaluable to health and wildlife officials in recognizing diseases, coordinating treatment and in other ways.
The Center is now taking the next step to getting such a network started by helping develop software that wildlife hospitals and others could use to keep and easily share information about illness, injuries and treatment.
"The hope is that by creating the software and making it available, that could be the spark to get things moving," said Clark. "We're still working with experts in the field to see what information we need to collect and the best way to set up the software to collect and maintain it."
Initial plans call for trial runs to be done with the software at a few sites before seeking funds to expand its use.
wildlifecenter.orgRob Hedelt: 540/374-5415
Email: rhedelt@freelancestar.com
