Staff at the Mercer County Wildlife Center are getting set for new volunteer orientations that are being held in March at the Hopewell Township facility.
The orientation sessions will be two days. One on March 16 and the other on March 24. Both sessions will be from 10 a.m. to noon, and you must attend one of the two sessions to become a volunteer.
“We are always looking to add volunteers, because we always have holes in our schedule. Our volunteer orientations usually bring in around 40-50 people each session,” said Diane Nickerson, the director of the Wildlife Center.
She said the the orientations really get to explain what the Wildlife Center staff do and what is expected of the volunteers.
“A lot of people think ‘wow a wildlife hospital, we get to play with wild animals and that is not what you get to do.’ We lose about a third of the people who come to orientation and that is okay. I would rather them not be disappointed in what they will do here,” Nickerson said.
The orientations in March will be the only ones offered for 2019. Volunteers will have to be able to commit to one four-hour shift per week from May to September and be at least 18 years of age and have received a tetanus vaccine.
The duties of the volunteers will consist of cleaning, feeding and laundry.
The Wildlife Center has around 150 volunteers (seven of which are veterinarians) each year, five seasonal employees and three full-time employees.
The center will have three volunteer shifts a day for seven days a week. In the winter, which is the quiet season, the staff will run only two shifts per day.
The Wildlife Center treated more than 2,600 animals in 2018.
“We treat birds, mammals and reptiles,” she said. “We had about 500 reptiles and the other 2,100 is about an even break between mammals and birds.”
Nickerson has been a part of the Wildlife Center for 25 years and does not tire of it at all.
“This is a job I come to that I like getting out of the bed every morning for,” she said.
There are 50 volunteers who have been returning back for five years and 22 who have been coming back for 10.
Beth Morpeth is one of those returning volunteers. She has been working as a volunteer for four years.
“I got involved because of my daughter. She interned here and I became a volunteer. I am here all year long,” Morpeth said.
Morpeth volunteers for a four hour shift every Tuesday. She is also helping lead the enrichment program at the Wildlife Center.
The program has been operating for one year. It is designed to stimulate the animals and fosters the foraging behavior they would exhibit in the wild.
“We will have multiple things to help enrich the animals here. For example, instead of throwing food in the crow’s bowl, I made a shallow box and sectioned it off. I put turf, lettuce or toilet paper over the food so the crow has to look for it. It makes the crow forge for the food,” she said.
Morpeth said she plans to continue coming back and loves working with everyone at the Wildlife Center.
The Mercer County Wildlife Center is located at 1748 River Road, Titusville. For more information, visit www.wildlifecenterfriends.org, or call 609-303-0552.
