Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


The Howell Nature Center is thanking the community for its generosity in donations to help keep its Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic open.

As a thank you to everyone, the Wild Wonders Wildlife Park and Alexandria's Nature Scape will be open without admission this Saturday from 10am to 5pm.

CEO Tina Bruce told WHMI they can’t thank the community enough – saying she knew they would rally behind them but as quickly and generously as they did was absolutely amazing and they are extremely thankful. Over $100,000 was raised within days of putting out the call for assistance.

Due to donations being down and the cost of everything being up, the Center was forced to stop taking in wildlife and close the clinic, as well as lay off some staff. Only the clinic was shut down.

Bruce noted they are a very specialized organization for wildlife rehabilitation – taking in over 2,000 animals a year of more than 100 different species. She said most other rehabbers throughout the state are specific to a certain mammal or bird, and don’t take in the wide variety they do.

Bruce said their year-round staff is around 18 people and when they hit hard times back in October and were desperately looking at ways to reduce costs, unfortunately they had to let three staff members go. She said that might not sound like a lot but when you only have 18 employees, it’s a pretty significant part of the workforce.

Bruce noted it will take a little bit of time to ramp back up with the wildlife rehab clinic but they also want to make sure they have a concrete plan moving into 2025 to bring back staff.

Bruce said they will be waiving admission this Saturday so the community can come out and enjoy a day at the Nature Center as a thank you to everybody who helped them meet their financial goals. She said they’ll also have another day in May for the community when the weather is a bit nicer and more animals are out in their habitat.

Donations are still being accepted, through the provided link.

The Nature Center will also be hosting is annual Christmas Tree sale on Black Friday, November 22nd.