Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 13, 1995 TAG: 9507130010
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WAYNESBORO LENGTH: Long
Rayner carefully inserted a metal pin through six or seven fractures, not completely sure the pin would hit all the right places.
She stitched the wound closed, stepped back and pulled her surgical mask down.
"It was something I probably should have euthanized on the table," she said to her assistants.
Then she shrugged and added: "But, we tried."
When it comes to saving injured and orphaned wild animals - like the osprey lying on the operating table with a smashed wing - the veterinarians, staff and volunteers at the Wildlife Center of Virginia don't give up easily.
It's the kind of dedication, with a large dose of sheer determination, that has seen the nonprofit center through 13 years of scrimping and scrounging to make ends meet while providing medical care for thousands of deer, raptors, songbirds, snakes, rabbits and other critters every year - all for free.
There may have been times when director and co-founder Ed Clark thought about euthanizing the center itself. Instead, he virtually force-fed it, adding programs and expanding services, until it outgrew its old digs.
Last month, the wildlife center moved into a $1 million, custom-designed building with an environmentally friendly heating and cooling system, energy saving lights, recycled hospital equipment, dozens of spacious outdoor cages for recovering animals, and three bathrooms.
"All indoors," Clark joked as he showed a couple of visitors around last week. "It's really nice not having a place with wheels under it."
The center was born in a barn at Clark's Waynesboro home and moved in 1985 into three trailers at Weyers Cave, where the local Ruritan club offered the use of an acre almost free of charge.
Soon, staffers were double- and triple-stacking cages - and nearly tripping over each other.
"That used to be our entrance area," Clark said, pointing to a small brown rug in the new center's roomy, glass-enclosed foyer.
The staff of 16 has plenty of elbow room in the 5,700 square-foot place - more than triple the size of the old quarters. There are separate offices for different program directors, a large library area and meeting room that will be open to the public, a diagnostic lab with four work stations (versus just one at Weyers Cave), large operating and medical treatment areas, a radiology suite, an intensive care room and an apartment for the 30 or so vet students who come from across the country each year to learn how to care for wildlife.
The center is the only independent teaching hospital for wildlife in the country, possibly the world, Clark said. It receives no government funding and is not associated with a university.
But the center has always relied on citizen and corporate contributions, and the new building is testimony to its role in the community, as well as to Clark's scavenging and schmoozing skills.
nDuPont, which has a plant in Waynesboro and whose plant manager, Tom Harris, sits on the center's board of directors, donated 7.5 acres adjacent to the George Washington National Forest.
Clark met Harris years ago, when Clark served on the now-defunct Virginia Environmental Council. DuPont was looking for ways to reduce waste and improve its environmental image, and sought Clark's input.
B&S Contracting in Staunton donated another three-quarters of an acre.
Harman Construction in Harrisonburg, the project's contractor, donated about half its fee.
A retired biology professor at Mary Baldwin College is donating his collection of ornithology journals, dating back 50 years.
Augusta Hospital Corp. donated $50,000 worth of equipment - four tractor-trailer loads - when the Kings Daughter Hospital in Staunton was closed. Clark had befriended the corporation's president years ago, and was sitting next to him at a dinner recently.
"We sure would like to have some stuff out of there," Clark told his friend. "Finally the call came, and he said, 'Come and get the stuff.'"
A Virginia Beach veterinarian donated the X-ray machine.
The center bought all the pine lumber, but Clark managed to get it at a discount from a local supplier.
Virginia Power underwrote part of the cost for a geo-thermal heating and cooling system, which recycles water and air through 10,000 feet of piping that runs underground, where the temperature remains 57 degrees.
The center's first heating bill, without the system, was $1,100. The next month's bill, after the system was hooked up and running, was $440.
Virginia Power will use the system as a demonstration project for its energy-conservation program for businesses.
"They've really played a nice big role in this," said Clark, who is pleased to involve the center as a demonstration, since one of its top goals is education.
As Clark puts it: "You don't have to be someone who lives in the woods and eats twigs and berries to think about the environment."
Air conditioning, for instance, doesn't have to be an environmental evil, as the center's new system should soon prove.
Virginia Power also donated old utility poles and installed them for the outdoor, 200-foot-long cage where hawks, owls and other birds of prey can take test flights to strengthen their wings before they're released back into the wild.
Company employees came out one weekend to build the cage, putting in a total of 750 man-hours, Clark said.
Then there's the untold, unpaid hours put in by volunteers like Stuart Shand, 14, who was at the center last week helping to clear limbs around the site, and another 14-year-old who was earning points for his Eagle Scout project by helping dismantle the old center at Weyers Cave.
In the end, the center will be worth about $1 million, including the land, building and everything in it. The organization will be only $150,000 in debt, Clark said.
Unlike the generosity of its human supporters, the forces of nature bedeviled the center's first few weeks in its new home.
First, there was the tornado.
About 100 old oak trees graced the property. From the beginning, Clark made sure the building, cages and roads were positioned away from the oaks.
"We had gingerly avoided doing any damage or compromising those trees. In 10 minutes, all of our effort was on the ground," said Clark, recalling the twister that ripped through the Waynesboro area June 10, just days after the staff had moved the animals from Weyers Cave.
Despite the loss of trees, the building was spared and no animals were injured.
Then the rains came, sending buckets of water into the front foyer (thanks to a poorly designed overhang) and washing away much of the topsoil before workers could complete the landscaping.
That will have to be fixed.
The center may be open for business, but it's not yet finished.
"I intellectually know what we've accomplished, but it doesn't feel good yet," Clark said.
More cages have to be built, including one that can handle bears. Money has to be raised to pay off the debt, the Weyers Cave site has to be fully dismantled, a few positions have to be filled, boxes remain to be unpacked and a perimeter fence is yet to be built.
That's not to mention the animals that are brought in each day - an average of 17 - that need attention; a baby fox hit by car, a pigeon with a hernia, a dehydrated squirrel that was found trapped in a chimney.
And later this month, the center will be hosting a week-long open house, showing off the building and grounds to businesses and civic groups, conservation organizations, veterinarians, wildlife experts in government agencies, the workers who helped build the center, board members and other supporters.
The center is generally not open to the public, but folks can come by July 29 between noon and 4 p.m. for a rare glimpse at the facility. Call 942-9453 to let them know you're coming.
That's not to mention the animals that are brought in each day - an average of 17 - that need attention; a baby fox hit by car, a pigeon with a hernia, a dehydrated squirrel that was found trapped in a chimney.
In the rush of details and finishing touches yet to be done, Clark seems to have forgotten one thing.
The sign on the side of South Delphine Avenue, just outside Waynesboro, still reads: "Future Home of the Wildlife Center of Virginia."
by CNB