Local businesses help with animal releases
By Joanna Fitzgerald | Director of the von Arx Wildlife Hospital
Much of the success at the wildlife hospital is possible because of our many partners in the community who work with us to assist wildlife in need. Thank you.
Von Arx Wildlife Hospital Staff would like to thank Tim Mace from Wilderness Country Club for allowing us to release the Florida box turtle and one of the Florida softshell turtles on their grounds.
The turtles were injured by cars as a result of development. Wilderness Country Club provided a safe, suitable habitat for these waifs.
Signature Tree Care also deserves a special thank you for their assistance re-nesting a healthy, red-shouldered hawk that fell from its nest in North Naples.
The neat part about this is the back story. Last year, these hawks were highly defensive when nesting but when we re-nested we were able to convince the homeowner to tolerate the attacks and profusely thanked them and praised them in my article.
This year, the hawks moved to a tree across the street. The house was vacant but the homeowner is trying to sell. The first call we got was that there had been several attacks and the realtor was refusing to show the house because of the attacks. The homeowner was actually contacting USFWS to see if they could move the nest. (active nests are federally protected and can only be removed with the permission from USFWS). They believed they were close to getting a permit when the baby fell. Once the homeowner saw the baby he had a change of heart and let us re-nest!
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