Fellow Mortals Wildlife Hospital will present a wild animal program at the Lake Geneva Public Library at 2 p.m. Tuesday in the library’s Smith meeting room.
Families are invited to meet the education owls who call Fellow Mortals Wildlife Hospital home. The audience will hear stories about the local wild animals helped at the hospital including baby bunnies and eagles. The audience will also learn what to do if they find a wounded wild animal and how to keep it safe until it reaches the hospital. The program is sponsored by the Friends of the Lake Geneva Public Library.
Parents are required to accompany children younger than 10 years old to the wild animal program.
Fellow Mortals Animal Hospital’s founders played a part in bringing wildlife rehabilitation into the professional sphere in Wisconsin. They worked with legislators and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to make sure that wildlife rehabilitation’s non-consumptive use was properly addressed in the Captive Wildlife Act, passed in 2003, which paved the way to establish standards and regulations relating to the practice of wildlife rehabilitation in Wisconsin.
Subsequent to the passing of that law, founders Yvonne Wallace Blane and Steve Blane were appointed to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Advisory Committee by former Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, along with five other wildlife rehabilitators in the state to help draft regulations for the field. They continue to serve on the committee in 2012.
Fellow Mortals is one of the largest wildlife hospitals in the state and country but operates much the same as it did when the Blanes initially organized it and ran it out of their home.
While other similar-sized facilities employ volunteers for animal care, who might only see the animals one day a week for a few-hour shift, wildlife admitted to Fellow Mortals receive care from a limited number of knowledgeable and experienced professionals who see the animals nearly every day, according to Fellow Mortals. While other facilities admit wildlife and then transfer them elsewhere for care, wildlife admitted to Fellow Mortals stay at the hospital from admit to release.
For more information, contact librarian Sara Soukup at (262) 249-5299 or soukup@lakegeneva.lib.wi.us, or visit the library’s Facebook page or lakegeneva.lib.wi.us.
