The day after the recent Gulf oil spill disaster, President and Director of the Hawaii Wildlife Center’s Linda Elliott, one of the top wildlife recovery experts in the nation and a member of an international recovery team, was on standby to fly to the accident site to help save wildlife from the most recent ecological disaster threatening wildlife. While she is ready to deploy immediately, the Hawaii Wildlife Center needs your help.
Founded in 2006, The Hawaii Wildlife Center is dedicated to the conservation and recovery of native wildlife through hands-on treatment, research, training, science education and cultural programs. The exterior of the building is complete but $450,000 is needed to complete the interior of the center. It will take four months to finish the construction but they need to have their doors open as soon as possible to help with this latest disaster.
Linda explained, “Why this facility is so critical to Hawaii is that it is the first one of its kind in the Pacific Region. There exists no facility to respond to emergencies such as oil spills, nor to treat native populations of birds, most of whom are on the endangered species list. We import 90% of our energy as oil, so there is a risk for a considerable amount of oil contamination on the water at all times. In the last 10 years alone, we’ve helped with the response to several oil spills in Hawaii, and we know it only takes one big event to create an environmental catastrophe. Having a response facility is critical for our region. The Hawaii Wildlife Center will have the capacity to treat hundreds of birds annually throughout the more than one thousand nautical mile archipelago. We also do work with the other islands, territories and nations.”
The Center plans to respond to disease outbreaks as well as. In 2008, Linda managed an avian botulism outbreak at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, where 150 critically endangered ducks were affected. In 2000, Linda was the rehabilitation manager for 20,000 oiled penguins during the Treasure spill in South Africa, recovering 90% of those penguins. The ability to train additional people to perform this kind of emergency response work for wildlife is essential for the world’s ecological environment.
“This oil spill in the Gulf is completely different,” Linda explained. “It’s going to have an impact for years. They’re not getting all of the animals in care all at one time. The oil is being spread out as it moves through different environments and is available to wildlife to run into. I encourage people to register to volunteer, but don’t just show up, because you do take away from the response. As hard as it is to watch from afar, the best way you can contribute now is register on the volunteer hotline and then wait to be called. Then donate to those responsible organizations like Hawaii Wildlife Center or Tri-State that’s working the spill right now, or the local wildlife rehabilitation centers.”
As one of Linda’s volunteer students commented, “It’s not that people don’t want to help, it’s that they don’t know how. So if we give them the tools to help make a difference, they will.”
The Hawaii Wildlife Center receives calls daily about birds in distress. Linda has been working with local veterinarians on the critical cases but without a wildlife center, they have no long-term care facilities to properly treat them. But the importance of having a Hawaii Wildlife Center is not only local as Linda explains.
“What is so exciting about Hawaii is that it is a living laboratory for the rest of the world. We’re able to do research here in a contained environment that can have application to national parks and refuges throughout the world. Because they are essentially islands of wildlife in civilizations, what we learn in Hawaii on managing and reversing extinction trends, managing wildlife population and conservation issues, will pertain to other places. There’s such a uniqueness of species here found nowhere else in the world, and it would be a tragedy to the planet to lose these genetic pools and biodiversities. It does touch everybody.”
Please do your part, and visit www.hawaiiwildlifecenter.org to learn more about the facility and donate to help finish this worthy project.
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