Our New Mugs Have Landed

Each year we produce a mug to commemorate the hard work our volunteers generously donate and a species who had it worse than many others. This year’s mug for 2021 is now here, and it’s the tenth in our series!

Featuring the Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis), a remarkable bird of the deep northern seas who only comes to land to nest during a brief breeding season, our 2021 mug honors the multitude of Fulmars we admitted in 2021.

Between 2012 and 2020, we admitted 35 Northern Fulmars, for a variety of reasons, but mostly just found stranded. Yet in 2021, we admitted 24 of these mysterious seabirds!


Northern Fulmars are a seabird with distinct challenges for any would-be care provider. In the early days of seabird rehabilitation, Fulmars were notorious for simply not making it in captive care situations – causing geat heartbreak and frustration for those of us trying to get them back to wild freedom. About 15 years ago, great strides in their care were made during a mass stranding in event in Monterey Bay, in which the team I was on provided care for nearly 100 of these birds. Because the facility where we were doing this rescue operation had a pool that used salt water brought in directly from the ocean, we made the fortuitous discovery that Northern Fulmars, and all procelliformes (or tubenoses) cannot thrive on fresh water, as most salt water birds can manage for short stays.

Once we started making sure that all Fulmars were housed on salted pools, our success rate began to climb. Now we think of them as any other seabird, still with challenges but within our abilities to treat and release. Of the 24 Norhtern Fulmars admitted in 2021, we were able to provide care for 9 (the other 15 either had injuries too severe to treat or were deceased on admission – a sad but typical toll). Of the 9 we attempted to treat, just over 50 % were successfully released – a result much more in line with the results we might expect from any species we admit.

HWCC/bax staff and interns display how super-cool you’ll look drinking your favorite hot (or cold) beverage from our new mug!

If you’d like one of our new mugs, drawn by Bird Ally X’s famed art director, Laura Coriglia, simply stop in at our clinic in Bayside (not for long, we’re moving at the end of this year!). We’re asking $10 for each mug.

Thank you for your support over the years, and for helping us improve the quality of care available for wildlife in Humboldt, in California and around the world. It’s serious work and we couldn’t do it without you! And if you can, please donate here! Thank you!!!!

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Tonight! Celebrate the Volunteers!

Come out tonight to help us honor and celebrate the generous and compassionate people who help Humboldt Wildlife Care Center everyday. Without our volunteers we wouldn’t be able to meet our mission. Volunteers get it done!

Can’t make it but would like to make a donation in honor of our volunteers’ hard work? Donate here!

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Thank You 2016 Volunteers!

Last Saturday we held our 4th Annual Rent Party and Volunteer Appreciation show! 2016 was a tough year and without our volunteer staff we would not have been able to provide direct care to over 1o00 wild neighbors as well as consult on thousands of more cases resulting in humane conflict resolution between the wild and society.

Volunteers for Humboldt Wildlife Care Center work long hours doing many thankless tasks (Thank You!). Over the course of our year we treat some of the most dignified and respected beings in a universe of beings, from Fox Sparrows to Grey Foxes, from Wigeons to Pigeons, yet the daily tasks remain largely focused on food and its aftermath – dishes, laundry and cleaning up poop!

And all of this very earthy work is balanced on the other side by the joys and sorrows that are as integral and as natural a part of helping injured and orphaned wild animals as nutrition, wound treatment, and proper housing. Volunteer wildlife rehabilitators become well-versed in them all. Each year we celebrate the dedication, the strength and the generosity of our volunteer staff. And we invite the public to join us. Not only did we give our volunteers a great night, but with your help we raised over $200!

This year’s Volunteer Appreciation show was special in that we were able to hold our event in a  new performance/art space in Old Town Eureka, Synapsis Nova, directed by longtime performer, dancer, producer, poor person’s advocate, artist of many disciplines, and all around huge supporter of Bird Ally X and Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, Leslie Castellano.
Each year Leslie helps us put this show on, and we are very grateful for her generosity and general just being a fantastic person!


We had a terrific show, opened by past BAX intern and current biologist working on watershed restoration, Lauryl McFarland, who performed a delightful and poignant song accompanying herself on ukele.

EPIC forest advocate, Rob DiPerna performed a few songs! Rob has a fantastic voice and a real love for music’s capacity to engage the issues of our times! Rob has performed at our show 3 years in a row now! Thank you Rob! 

Aerial Dancer Jessica Rubin takes to the skies!

Leslie Castellano in flight!

The Neighbors – King Crimson and Jonathan Richman blast into a furious exploration of Thelonious Monk’s approach to composition. (not kidding! wow!)

Local improvisational orchestra, Medicine Baul, also played, but no photographs exist! Nonetheless, Medicine Baul has played all four years at our annual Rent Party/Volunteer Appreciation Show and we appreciate them, their support and the crazy ways in which they bring music to life! If you haven’t been to a show, go to the next one that comes! Seriously! They’re awesome!

Flying above us all – our mission.


Thank you to Synapsis Nova, Ramone’s Bakery, Wildberries Marketplace, and Moonstone Crossing Winery for supporting this event and our work, and helping us thank our volunteers!

And to our volunteers of 2016:  Without you we don’t even exist! Thank you! We look forward to more work, more sorrows, more learning and more joys in 2017!

 

 

 

 

 

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Volunteer Appreciation/Rent Party!

Every year BAX honors our dedicated volunteers with a show and a party! And we invite everyone to come help us celebrate their devotion and love for our wild neighbors. Without our volunteers, our work wouldn’t be possible. Please come join us and also help us raise much needed funds to cover the cost of our rent!

Music by The Neighbors, Medicine Baul and Rob DiPerna! Dance and Aerial Dance perfrmed by Leslie Castellano and  Jessica Rubin! Poetry  too (from your host and HWCC director, Monte Merrick (that’s me))

Join us Saturday, December 10, in Old Town Eureka!

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