In Marin / CONVERSATION
You met Elizabeth Terwilliger, a pioneering
Marin naturalist, when you first started your
job at WildCare. How did that go? A month
after I joined Wildcare I went to visit her at
The Redwoods in Mill Valley where she was
living. She was on the board of Wildcare at the
time. I spotted a pair of mallards in the creek
and asked her if she thought they mated for
life. Without missing a beat, Elizabeth replied,
“You know, you’d have to ask them.”
What does WildCare advocate? One of the
best examples is stopping the use of rat poison. If you poison a rat, you poison a hawk,
an owl, a fox or bobcat or any other predator
that eats it. We test all the carnivore patients
for levels of rodenticides, even if a car has hit
them, and we have found that 90 percent have
some level of rodenticide in their system. The
Environmental Protection Agency has used
our data to continue its studies on rodenticides. Now, we’re working with the California
Department of Pesticide Regulation and have
expanded our testing, through a network of
veterinarians and their clients, to include
dogs and cats. And, last year, after a number
of confined tule elk in Point Reyes died when
their ponds dried up, we circulated a petition to
instate a policy that in the event the drying-up
ever happened again, the National Park Service
would provide water. We’re very proud of that.
Why is WildCare important? We are so lucky
to be in this natural world but our boundar-
ies bump up against each other. Ninety-nine
percent of the time that an animal comes
through WildCare, it’s because of a nega-
tive human interaction. We’re not trying to
mess with the natural order; we just fix what
humans happened to do that shouldn’t have
happened in the first place. There are threats
to wildlife every where but the number one
problem is cats. They prey on the songbird
population so we encourage people to make
changes that make that less likely to happen
by keeping them inside, or in outdoor cat con-
dos, which is safer for the cat, too.
What is your most memorable case? Maybe it
was the bobcat that was hit by a car and lay on
the side of Highway 101 in San Rafael. He was
unconscious when a passerby, thinking he was
a large domestic cat, picked him up and put
him in her car. He woke up but luckily wasn’t
awake enough to do any damage. His leg was
broken in two places and our veterinarians —
who are all volunteers, by the way — put pins
in his leg at their clinic and he was released
back to the wild. That’s why this new hospital
is so critical. We don’t want to have to transport animals to get care and we’re hoping to
have the resources to hire a veterinarian.
What are the biggest complaints about wildlife? Skunks, when they’re in mating season
and more likely to spray, but raccoons are
high up on the list. When they’re nesting
and having babies, they can find their way
into chimneys and other areas of a house.
We encourage people to let them have their
babies (skunks won’t spray in their dens) and
then, after you get them all safely out of the
place, to block the entrance. Most people don’t
know that by law, a commercial pest control
company can’t release animals it traps; it’s
required to kill them. Our WildCare Solutions
Service, however, will come out for a small
charge, perform an inspection and seal the
entrances for any Bay Area resident.
What might people not know about WildCare?
Some people might think WildCare is only
about caring for animals, but just as important is our educational focus. We have 20,000
Bay Area children a year go through our educational programs. We offer field trips that
are tied to science standards and our nature
van goes to schools to teach children about
California wildlife. We also have weeklong day
camps in the summer. We won’t turn down
any child or school because of finances and
our full scholarships include transportation.
You’re in the midst of a $10 million capital
campaign but still need to raise $4 million.
How are you doing that? We’ve just hired a
wonderful new development director and,
besides our big donor push, we’ve come up
Future home of the new
36,000-square-foot space for
Wild Care at Silveira Ranch.
Ninety-nine percent of the
time that an animal comes
through WildCare, it’s because of
a negative human interaction.
