It’s wintertime at the Pauline S. Schneegas Wildlife Foundation (PSSWF) in rural Garfield County, and as the season sets in, educational visits and wildlife caretaking shift toward repairs, ruminations over a challenging year and meditations on the future of its operations.
When Nanci Limbach founded the wildlife rehabilitation center over 40 years ago, it began with the care of bears and other mammals in her backyard. Limbach’s grandmother Pauline S. Schneegas supported the aims of the center, and following her death in 1991, the center received its current name and funds left to Limbach were used for the construction of the center’s first flight cage for the rehabilitation of birds.
Now, PSSWF has the facilities to care for all sorts of species both as permanent educators and as visitors in need of temporary care before re-release, ranging from eagles to tortoises, bobcats, bears and deer.
PSSWF typically finds animals through individual callers or through Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW). Because operations are dependent on which animals come in, year-by-year work and financial needs at the rehabilitation center can vary significantly. Furthermore, each critter comes with its own set of needs — some requiring more care, food, funds and creative problem-solving than others.
According to Limbach, the most intensive animals to take care of aren’t bears or lions like one might expect. Instead, it’s beavers. Unlike bears, beavers stay active through the winter and require pools and heated dens. Since beavers defecate in water, the pools need constant cleaning. Beavers also have the rather costly tendency to gnaw around the machinery, require a constant supply of wood to gnaw on instead and expensive food pellets. In other words, if PSSWF is rehabilitating beavers, it’s going to make a dent in the yearly budget. This year, PSSWF is wintering several beavers along with three bear cubs, a juvenile bobcat, several dozen raptor, and some songbirds.
PSSWF won’t have their bears through to the springtime. Instead, best practice for rehabilitating bear cubs is a mid-winter release. In this technique, cubs are tranquilized partway through hibernation and carefully delivered to a preconstructed den in their natural habitat. PSSWF is working closely with CPW to build a den for the cubs.
The cubs have already begun to pack down their bedding for the winter at PSSWF, and if all goes according to plan, they should be waking up this spring in the mountains, when they should be large and strong enough to fend for themselves.
With only two paid employees, PSSWF is primarily operated by a dedicated team of volunteers, including trained veterinarians at external practices who donate their time and expertise to caring for PSSWF’s residents. PSSWF’s vice president, Dr. Paul Bingham, is also an employee at Western Slope Animal Hospital and donates the use of his own home in Montrose as one of the center’s rehab facilities.
Limbach’s late husband, Paul, also operated Western Colorado Honey Company, which keeps over 3,000 bee colonies on the same property as PSSWF. Sadly, Paul passed away from a long battle with cancer in July of this year. Without his hands supporting operations at the rehabilitation center, Limbach looks toward the younger generation to eventually take up PSSWF’s mission in what she refers to half-jokingly as her “sustainability plan.”
Presently, much of Limbach’s sustainability plan is made up by Erin Romero and Sky Kendrick, PSSWF’s sole paid employees who assist in all operations — both technological and rehabilitative. Additionally, the hives of Western Colorado Honey likewise found good care in the hands of Derrick Maness, who has been working for the company since 1997, and now operates the hives in conjunction with his own business, Colorado Mountain Honey. Because of the lengthy, expensive process of becoming a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and the current size of PSSWF, Limbach continues to rely on and seek out dedicated volunteers to keep the center going strong.
PSSWF also sustains itself through continued donations, primarily through private organizations and animal lovers across the Western Slope. Those interested in donating or taking a tour sometime this spring can find more information at www.psswf.org