Thanks to the tremendous fundraising support we have received within the first six months of embarking on this endeavor, we have been able to plan beyond the first enclosure and move forward with planning and constructing all four enclosures immediately. This will provide us space needed to care for more bear cubs who will need our help as soon as this summer. The estimated cost for us to construct all four enclosures at once is $400,000.

This is just a small picture of all the work going into this significant project. Within the next few weeks, we are hoping to send a full update and provide you a complete bird’s eye view of our progress and future needs.

Outside of the Apex Predator Enclosure Development, our staff and volunteers have been busy preparing for the next baby season, which is right around the corner. Our “winter projects” include organizing and stocking our storage sheds, making new and easily sanitized isolation dens, planting enrichment trees and shrubs in one of our larger predator enclosures, creating new perches for our raptors in care, refinishing the hardwood floors in the wildlife center, many general facility maintenance projects and of course managing the many tasks surrounding our Apex Predator Enclosure development. Thankfully, with all the work that needs to be done, the center is buzzing with hopeful energy that our hard work will all pay off when the first orphans begin to arrive within the next several weeks.

This winter we have also been fortunate to welcome two new members to the SCWR Team, Austin Robinson and Isaiah Greenfield. Austin is joining our team as an Animal Care Technician and Isaiah is our new Wildlife Exclusion Technician. They are currently both working hard to learn their new roles and help us fulfill our mission statement.

Finally, we wanted to take a moment to thank you, our supporters. We are so incredibly grateful for your continued encouragement, advocacy, and passion for helping wildlife in need. Your kindness fuels our fire and helps guide us through our hardest tasks. With so much troubling news that is out there today it is hard to look to the future and be hopeful for what lays in store. Instead of feeling let down by these visions, lets lean on each other and dare to be hopeful in 2022, working together to build a better future for our wildlife and the planet.

Last year, Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue's BOMP Program serviced 559 Barn Owl Boxes throughout Sonoma County. From installing new boxes to monitoring and maintaining existing boxes, our BOMP team was busy as ever caring for the needs of our local barn owls.

In addition to servicing these boxes, BOMP fostered 1 barn owl with a wild mother, conducted 3 “hack” releases (where we provided food to the nearly fledged owlets inside of a barn owl box), and renested 10 barn owlets that had fallen from their nests prematurely!

Thanks to the use of wildlife cameras, we were able to capture some great footage of the owls interacting when we were not around. These videos were crucial in determining whether or not owls had been orphaned or just merely fell from their nest. They were also used by Humboldt State University in their barn owl studies, determining how barn owls take their first flights from their boxes.

Cheers to another successful year of BOMP and to our clients for their dedication to sustainable and wildlife friendly pest control!

Since the first black bear cubs arrived in August 2021, we have learned so much about the species, their big personalities, and the things they need to thrive in care. Currently, the cubs are hunkered down for the winter, having gone into torpor. Torpor is less dramatic than hibernation, where bears are very low mentation, spending most of their days sleeping, but you may also see them come out on warmer days and then quickly wandering back to their den for more sleep. Since winters are over quickly in Sonoma County, we anticipate they will come out of torpor in the next several weeks.

Black bears are one of the few species that live in Sonoma County that need to be “over-wintered” under one year of age. Beavers and eagles are some of the other species that spend prolonged time with their parents in the wild and therefore are guaranteed to need specialized care beyond fall when raised in a rehabilitation setting.

Thanks to amazing community support, we were able to satisfy their insatiable appetites up until they went into torpor in mid-December. Our community signed up to bring delivery after delivery of fruit, vegetables, nuts, eggs, and enrichment to our center doors. These donations were able to feed beyond the bear cubs as well, helping us feed hundreds of other wildlife patients that came to our center from August through December!

The effort and knowledge that goes into the care for these cubs is incredible. On average, each enclosure clean takes 5 staff members 2 hours to compete! After cleaning and mucking out all the scat and dirty straw, we disperse enrichment and food throughout the enclosure. Thankfully, while learning all the “bear necessities”, we had amazing support from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Lake Tahoe Wildlife Rescue, Ramona Wildlife Center, Kilham Bear Center, San Diego Zoo and Lions, Tigers and Bears. We will also be visiting PAWS Wildlife Center in Lynnwood, Washington this spring. Each group has offered a profound professional hand when it came to dietary needs, enrichment ideas, enclosure requirements, phasing the bears into torpor, and consulting on best practices to keep these cubs wild.

In observing the cubs for the past few months via surveillance cameras placed inside their enclosure, it’s clear to us that black bears are very smart and have big personalities to match their intelligence. The cubs in care spends their days eating, sleeping, chasing and wrestling with each other. Their favorite enrichment items seem to be stacks of hay bales that they wrestle and nap on, their water troughs that they cool off and play in, and a long log teepee shaped tunnel that the cubs forage and of course, chase each other around in. With these observations, it’s clear that we will need to spend a great deal of time and effort into planning long lasting and thoughtfully designed enrichment items for these cubs in our future Apex Predator Enclosure.

This spring, these cubs will return to their lives in the wild, contributing the health and wellbeing of the ecosystems they call home. While we are certain these will not be the last cubs that need our help, we are confident that we will never forget the incredible lessons learned while caring for them and the excitement they have brought to our center in the short time they spent with us.