Dear Friends, Supporters, and fellow lovers of the Wild,

Henry Thoreau noted over a 150 years ago that “in wildness is the preservation of the world.” You could say it’s the corollary of a more recent observation making the rounds on social media right now, attributed to Muhammad Ali, that “it’s not the deer that is crossing the road, rather it’s the road that is crossing the forest.

WANT TO SKIP THE READ AND GO SEE PICTURES OF SOME OF THIS YEAR’S FAWNS AND RACCOONS BEING RELEASED? click here and here. WANT TO MAKE A DONATION NOW WITHOUT SCROLLING ALL THE WAY DOWN? click here

It’s not hard to see that our society has put its faith and effort behind expansion of villages, towns, nations, trading routes, mechanization, the lot of it; – all of which has been, intentionally or not, a war on the wild. As a whole, our society sides with the road, we side with efforts to tame, the efforts to neutralize the wild and wildness. In short, we betray our home.

Our society has been betraying the wild for centuries, if not millennia, and it’s not some great abstraction or controversy to be debated, over which we must wrestle with viewpoints that give humans dominion, or that find in the world only human meaning. The simple truth can be seen on the side of every road we drive right here in Humboldt County. How many raccoons run down by vehicles on the highway and left to bloat do we need to see? We all know from what our own eyes tell us every day that the modern world finds its pavement to be far more necessary than the wild it destroys. Our allegiance to our machinery is so old and, by now, so integral to our lives that trying to imagine a world in which a Raccoon mother and her four young ones are more important than getting to Arcata in ten minutes is largely impossible.

We live in a world we didn’t make. Yet we make it every day.

One morning on US 101 as it passes through Eureka, someone threw their leftover fast food trash out their car window. At Humboldt Wildlife Care Center that meant that we admitted two Western Gulls (Larus occidentalis) that day. Both had been drawn to the food on the pavement there only to be hit by cars, injured so badly that humanely helping them into the next life was the only real treatment possible. Both gulls were rescued from further injury and suffering by compassionate people who saw the terrible thing unfold and couldn’t just drive on by.

Ours is a world where none of us are safe from accidentally harming our wild neighbors. We come from nature, like the rest of our neighbors, yet we’ve made our alliance with the struggle to overcome her. As if there might be a place there, beyond the Wild, where we might stand. And there is: extinction.

Every morning this year, Humboldt Wildlife Care Center/bax opened its doors, turned on its lights, became alive with the activity of staff and volunteers launching in to the day’s tasks caring for our patients and responding to phone calls regarding wild animals in need. We sent out teams to rescue hawks from the bank of the Mad River, or a hummingbird trapped inside a storefront. We opened our clinic to what may come – traumatically injured owls who’d been hit by a car; a group of orphaned raccoons whose mother had been trapped and taken far away; a young fawn rescued from one of the many fires this year, too badly burned to survive; a wayward fledgling crow successfully reunited with her parents; – a Pelican rescued; – a Pelican released.2018 is the most active year in Bird Ally X history. Not only did we care for nearly 1200 patients admitted to HWCC/bax here in Humboldt, our staff from around the state (notably, two BAX co-founders January Bill and Marie Travers) responded to an avian botulism outbreak in Siskiyou County, establishing a temporary field hospital to care for more than 400 ducks and shorebirds. In order to accomplish this volunteers from all over California helped, including support from HWCC staff, interns and volunteers. Three of the six BAX co-founders also traveled across the country and across oceans responding to oil spills that impacted wildlife as a part of other organizations’ responses. We’ve cared for more patients and reached more people through our outreach programs and internet presence than ever before and we struggle each day, each week, each month to cover our basic expenses.

Each year we talk about the mounting challenges, the difficulties, the successes, the sorrows, the joys of our work rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing back to freedom our wild neighbors in need. Each year we note the worsening symptoms of Earth out of balance. And each year we are committed to providing treatment, to the best of our abilities, for all those wild neighbors who are orphaned, or injured, or sickened by their contact with the built world – by their contact with us.

Each year we do what we can to advocate for our wild neighbors, to at least reduce the numbers who are hit by cars, trapped, caught and maimed or killed by our pets, whose nests are destroyed, whose wild, free and innocent lives are interrupted by our thoughtless machines and our tacit acceptance of the havoc they wreak.

Each year we are grateful and appreciative of your many-faceted support, moral, financial, and even sweat equity. Many of you work hard to bring balance back to the human experience of living on Earth. Your contribution is seen, recognized and highly valued.

We don’t know what trials are coming our way, but we know that deep love for the wild, compassion, love for our world, commitment, hard work and education must be woven so tightly together that they seem as one.

We know that there is no way for a humane future to come that doesn’t include taking care of those who we’ve harmed. That’s why we’re here. That’s why you support our work. It’s why we get misty when you thank us, with words, with money, with towels, with your love, and with your labor.

It’s also why we need you to support us like never before. Our workload is increasing at a rate faster than our ability to pay for it. Our mission demands that we grow, that we are able to accomplish more, not less, on behalf of our wild patients – as well as our colleagues for whom we also work. If we are to accomplish our work, it will be your support that made it so. We look forward to leaning on you in 2019 and beyond. Thank you.

With deep respect, gratitude – working together in alliance with the wild for a more humane 2019,

Monte Merrick
co-director Bird Ally X
director HWCC/bax

DONATE TO HELP US HELP OUR WILD NEIGHBORS