Salthaven West Wildlife Rescue opens new facility just outside Regina

Wildlife workers and volunteers in Regina now have more space to operate, moving into a new location just outside the city. Damian Smith has the story.

After three years of funding in the Regina area, a wildlife rehabilitation centre will now be open just outside of the city.

About 10 minutes north of the city, Salthaven West Wildlife Rehabilitation & Education Centre is ready to take in animals in Saskatchewan.

In operation for 10 years now, it took the centre three years to gather over $600,000 to construct the building.

“There’s been some highs and lows, certainly,” said Megan Lawrence, the director of Salthaven West. “We’re very lucky that the community has been so generous and gracious and helped us to where we are now. There’s been some challenges where things start rising in costs, where we have to spend more money on groceries to feed the patients but overall, we’re extremely happy with how things have gone.”

Lawrence says they’re looking to raise around $100,000 more to get an incubator and oxygen machine.

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With six rooms for patients, it’s a much bigger space than the last facility, which operated in a house basement, around 600 square feet. The new facility has 2,500 square feet with outside space.

“It worked for a short time, but quickly we outgrew it,” Lawrence said about the previous facility. “The infrastructure started failing, we realized we need a much larger space and that we need more land for the animals.”

Their rooms are divided between reptiles and amphibians, birds, and mammals. There’s also a break, laundry, and a mechanical room.

“A lot of the staff and volunteers have faced hardships in the little basement that we called our clinic,” Lawrence said. “Sometimes the air quality wasn’t what it should be, and the space can be really crowded. I’m so happy that the staff of volunteers now have a big space that they can be comfortable in.”

“Jake the Snake,” a garter snake that’s been in-house since 2018, was the lone patient during an open house on Saturday. However, move in day is happening within the matter of days. Salthaven currently has100 snakes, four salamanders, and one frog ready to move in.

For Salthaven founder, Brian Salt, this is the second location which has expanded westward. Salt started the organization in Strathroy Ont., back in 2004. Lawrence served as a volunteer at the Ontario location and was ready to move to Regina for a role in the RCMP.

“I think buildings like this help put people in touch with nature and make them more aware of what’s going on,” he said. “We see things in the environment that shouldn’t just be there, such as secondary rodenticide poisoning, habitat destruction, and habitat segmentation. It’s horrible when you really get down to it.”

The Strathroy location has 80 education programs to teach citizens how they can be more mindful of preventing accidents with animals.

“The biggest danger is, as with every new generation, there’s a new normal,” he said. “That new normal just kind of erodes the environment to such a degree that it doesn’t really matter anymore.”

He notes that animals such as the bald eagle have dropped a lot in Ontario populations. He says little things can prevent worst case scenarios for the wildlife.

“Taking those little yogurt cups and cutting one side of them and cleaning them out really well so that raccoons and skunks don’t get their heads caught in them and wander around in traffic and get killed or worse yet, starve to death,” he said.

Other causes of wildlife harm can be feeding bread to ducks and geese, as they can die from emaciation. Another example is if an animal picks up an apple core on the side of the road.

“The education side of what we do is extremely important,” Salt said. “Our primary goal is to help wildlife be returned to their natural environment, but right along and hand-in-hand with that is our education program.”

According to Lawrence, the most common type of animals that they’ll see is ducklings, baby birds, squirrels and white-tailed jackrabbits.

As of right now, the plains garter snake is most at risk for the reptiles. However, Salthaven has seen a “healthy amount” of western painted turtles, specifically around Wascana Lake.