With schools in full swing and people slowly finding balance after the pandemic, Piedmont Wildlife Center has had the opportunity to provide field trip opportunities to students all over the Triangle area. From small homeschool groups and neurodivergent classes to large school outings featuring over 80 student participants, the staff at Piedmont Wildlife Center has heard the drumming of footsteps and the excited voices of local kids.
Students that come to the wildlife center get to meet several of our wildlife ambassadors and explore the enclosures of our raptors. Our mammals—Pepper the Virginian opossum and Parsley the domesticated rabbit—are fan favorites among the kids. Apollo the barred owl gets quite a few “oohs” and “aahs” from the audience when he shows off his impressive plumage.
These programs are not just for admiring our ambassadors. Students get the opportunity to learn the life stories of each animal they meet, as well as interesting facts about its species. Students also learn about ways that they can help protect the wild cousins of our ambassadors. Our hope is that, through these field trips, the many kids that walk the trails at PWC will develop a love for nature and conservation that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.
Summer is in full swing at Piedmont Wildlife Center! Throughout Leigh Farm Park, kids are playing, animals are thriving, and the sun is shining! Just like our community, our garden continues to grow and grow. This spring, we planted a variety of vegetables to feed our Ambassador Animals and flowers to support native pollinators! Unsurprisingly, the animals seem to love the home-grown veggies and we're sure they are craving more. We've had lots of visitors to the pollinator plants, including several species of bees, butterflies, and even hummingbirds!
One of our animals in particular, Scout, loves the crookneck squash and their blossoms. You may not have heard of Scout until now, and that's because he is our newest ambassador! Scout is an eastern gray squirrel that came to us in May. He was deemed non-releasable because he is blind, but that doesn't stop him from being his lively, charismatic self. He loves climbing in his enclosure and snacking on pecans and sunflower seeds.
Some other notable projects are also moving forward as planned. We've completed demolition of our old red-shouldered hawk enclosure, and are preparing to build a new one in its place. We're excited to finally begin visiting camps, school groups, and more with our Ambassador Animals. Lastly, our summer interns have been working diligently on projects as well! These projects include an obstacle course for our squirrel and opossum, a content queue including videos and photos of our fabulous Ambassador Animals, and garden identification signs!
Of course, all that we have completed in these past few months would not be possible without our donors. We are so thankful and appreciative of everything that you have provided for us. Your donations help us out greatly, whether it be for projects like the ones completed this summer, or supplies used to care for the animals!
Stay tuned for updates on the garden, PWC events, and more!
Links:
In and around the cabin at Piedmont Wildlife Center, both wild critters and our Animal Ambassadors are bustling with activity. Butterflies are beginning to flutter about, voles are scurrying in and out of the compost bin, and I even spotted my first ruby-throated hummingbird of the season while relaxing on the cabin porch yesterday! Spring has surely sprung.
As we forge into warmer weather and our "busy season" for events and programs with our Ambassadors, we continue to work hard at giving them a happy, healthy life. We've broken ground on our latest project with them in mind: a garden that we plan to fill with a variety of veggies and fruits that will provide them nutritionand enrichment, while cutting our carbon footprint at the same time! We're also planning to cultivate a pollinator garden to attract and support our wild pollinating neighbors. As soon as freezing temperatures fade from the forecast, we're hoping to get seeds and starters in the ground!
We're also wrapping up with a demolition project: taking down our old red-shouldered hawk enclosure. Staff and volunteers have pitched in to dismantle the frame, remove the roof, and haul away the remnants. This same area is the future site of a brand new enclosure, for a future raptor Ambassador that will share its own unique story and message of conservation!
Projects like these are made possible by generous donations like yours. We are so grateful for the support you give, and for the exciting opportunities we're able to explore as a result.
Stay tuned for updates on both our garden project and our raptor enclosure progress!
Happy Holidays from Piedmont Wildlife Center!
This season, we're especially thankful for everyone that has shown up in one way or another for PWC this year, whether you met our birds at one of our Raptor Fly-Thru events, participated in our camp programs, or showed your appreciation from afar on social media. If it wasn't for the unwavering support we've been given throughout this year, quite literally none of the work we've been able to accomplish in 2020 would have been possible. That's something to celebrate!
We're also celebrating a new addition to our menagerie of Ambassador Animals: Pepper, the Virginia Opossum! Pepper was found ealier this year as an orphaned baby along with her sister, and was brought to Our Wild Neighbors, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Hillsborough, NC. Pepper was deemed too small to be released, so she is now a permanent resident at PWC. While she is only about 6 months old, she has tons of personality and has warmed right up to us. We're so excited to have her as an ambassador for the Virginia Opossum!
While we are not a wildlife rehabilitation center ourselves, we do house and care for 25 Ambassador Animals, most of which are rehabilitated, non-releasable wildlife. And as much as we love to care for these amazing creatures, it takes a lot of time--and funding--to do so. To provide the high quality care we strive for, which includes regular (and sometimes suprise) vet visits, balanced diets, medications, and so much more, it will cost us an estimated $570 a year to care for Pepper. Add in our other 24 animals--including raptors, reptiles and mammals--and things really start to add up.
In addition to providing a lifelong home to our Ambassador Animals, we have the opportunity to provide up-close encounters with these animals to the public. This gives us a unique opportunity to share each animal's individual story while also educating the public on the role of their species in the surrounding ecosystem. We are honored to bring often misunderstood creatures like Pepper to people and help them understand, respect, and coexist with our wild neighbors!
Your generosity is what enables us to bring Pepper's story to so many, and we thank YOU for being a part of Piedmont Wildlife Center's story. We wish you a safe and cheerful holiday season!
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
Make a monthly donation & get 
