Wildlife rehab groups look to keep up with spiking demand for care with holiday campaigns [Video]

The Alberta Institute for Wildlife Conservation (AIWC) and the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilitation Society (Calgary Wildlife) say this is an important time of year to raise funds for their work in caring for injured and orphaned wildlife.

Beki Hunt, executive director for Calgary Wildlife, says to date, more than 2,200 wild animals have come through their doors needing care, and they’ve had more than 7,500 calls to their wildlife hotline from concerned citizens.

Hunt says those numbers have continued to climb since 2022.

“We’re going to be up about 10 per cent from last year,” she said. “And last year, we were up about 25 per cent from the year before, so over the past two years, we’ve seen an increase of about 35 per cent in our patient intake.”

Hunt says the fundraising goal for the 2024 holiday campaign is $200,000.

“This end-of-year time is our biggest fundraising push,” she said. “We do fundraise obviously throughout the year, but this time of …