It’s time to look again on 2023! Examine our weblog between Christmas and New Yr’s for a wide range of tales and reminiscences of 2023 from the workers and volunteers of the Wildlife Heart of Virginia.

Whereas I’ve some expertise coaching animals, I didn’t fairly count on to be utilizing my data to the diploma that I did this previous 12 months. We admitted Pink Fox #22-2818 in October 2022 as a juvenile who had illegally been saved as a pet. This sadly led her to lose her worry of individuals and she or he grew to become habituated. Which in the end, made her non-releasable.

The rehabilitation workforce started our journey to start coaching this fox within the hopes that she would be capable to acclimate appropriately to life in captivity as an schooling animal at a everlasting facility. None of us may have imagined the enjoyment that coaching her introduced us. We began with easy goal coaching, which might assist her perform a wide range of behaviors in a captive setting, akin to getting a voluntary weight or shifting to a unique area. Whereas utilizing a number of approximations to get her to carry out the specified conduct, I bought the chance to be taught her character. Being rehabilitators, we don’t typically get to work together with sufferers in a method that elicits a constructive response to our presence. She started displaying excited and “play” behaviors when she noticed us coming round for her coaching periods. This is able to vary from zoomies to full-on yips and vocalizations. She grew to become the spotlight of my hectic early child season days.

Via our time collectively she was efficiently goal skilled, station skilled, and in addition bought midway to being crate skilled! All of us loved our time along with her to the fullest. She was fortunately accepted to the Norfolk Zoo and moved to her everlasting house there on the finish of June, the place she acquired the title “Pip.” I do know Pip will all the time have a particular place in my coronary heart. Whereas not all habituated sufferers have such a contented ending, I’m very grateful that I bought the time to work together along with her. 

– Liz Duffy, Wildlife Rehabilitator 

Try all of our year-in-review posts!