Many West Virginians enjoy taking the long hike around the loop of animals at the West Virginia Wildlife Center. However, since Superstorm Sandy, the walk is quite a mess.
“It was really a bad two day event that brought significant damage to most of our animal enclosures,” said Wildlife Center General Manager Gene Thorne. “Most of our pens incurred significant damage.”
Although most of the enclosure fences were slammed with falling limbs, most of the penned animals chose to stay put. The only fugitives in the wake of the damage were birds, including the golden eagle. The eagle came to the wildlife center as a rescue bird and although it was able to fly, it is missing three toes. Two owls and all of the center’s hawks got away. The problem was the netting which covers the bird enclosures was weighed down by the heavy, wet snow.
“We did lose some of our birds, but we didn’t lose any of our mammals,” said Thorne. “We’re trying to recapture some of the birds and anybody who sees a bird acting like it’s injured, because most of our birds were rehab birds, give us a call.”
A huge buck, the mountain lion, and the coyotes and bears had damaged to their enclosed pins, but didn’t escape. Crews quickly responded to the damage which has partially closed the facility for a while and managed to do enough containment to keep them from fleeing.
“I guess most of them really like being fed and the care they get at the wildlife center,” he laughed. “Most of them just decided to stay put.”
Thorn says it’s going to take a while to get everything cleaned up and repaired. He’s in the process of getting estimates from fence companies to rebuild some of the fences. He credits the Wildlife Center Staff for a quick response to avoid a father catastrophe.
“They responded, every one of them had the power out at their houses and had trees down and a difficult time getting to work,” said Thorne. “But they showed up en masse and we temporarily patched everything there in a couple of days and contained the animals. It was a great effort by the staff.”
Thorne says the wildlife center is temporarily closed although the area housing the buffalo and elk will remain open.