Published 10/30/08
Joanie can devour a rat in minutes. It’s feeding time at the Wildlife Center, in Arroyo Seco, and the bobcat is sitting under a tree working on seconds. She is one of four bobcats the Center keeps for educational purposes. All of them — Joanie, Catrina, Rufus and Roberta — were orphaned, and they’re unable to survive in the wild because they’ve spent so much time around humans.
Each bobcat can eat up to 14 large rats per week, and this year there’s a problem. Fires in southern Albuquerque late this summer caused the Center’s main supplier of rats to evacuate, making the animals’ dinner more expensive. Shipping costs alone from some out-of-state suppliers are almost $1 per rat, Center Development Associate Cheryl Bell said.
“(The cost of food) has always been an issue, but this summer things got really bad,” Bell said.
The four educational bobcats represent a small portion of all the animals the Center cares for. There are six more bobcats being rehabilitated, as well as 21 raptors. The center has 60 animals and birds in rehabilitation and 32 that it keeps for educational purposes, Bell said.
Although the Center is past the food-intensive baby season, some of the animals in rehabilitation will have to wait until springtime to be released, Staff Veterinarian Stephenie Garcia said. Many of the animals that enter the Center with summertime injuries may be healed by winter, but at that point there is nowhere to release them, Garcia said. Garcia said an orphaned fox was scheduled to be released recently, but the winter came on too fast.
On a weekly basis, the animals and birds at the Center eat about 400 rats and 144 mice, Bell said. The Center has paid $1,019, which includes shipping, for 500 rats from out-of-state suppliers, Bell said. Before the fire, the Center’s Albuquerque supplier would deliver the rats without charging a shipping fee, she said.
In addition to the added shipping costs, the rats available are not as big as the rats the Center usually uses, Bell said. The bobcats will eat about a pound’s worth of meat, which if the rats are big enough means about one or two rats, Educational Animal Curator Scott Bol said. With medium-sized rats, the only ones available now, the bobcats have to eat about three, he said.
The Center operates on a $500,000 budget, Bell said, and its main source of support comes from private individual and foundation grants. A $10,000 grant from the state Game and Fish Department is the only government funding in this year’s budget, she said.
The increased cost for feeding the animals means the Center will have to be more diligent in looking for funding, Bell said.
“We have to go out and start begging,” she said. “They’re certainly not going to allow (the animals and birds) to starve.”
Along with rehabilitation, the Center serves as an educational facility, she said. Groups can either tour the facility or arrange to have the Center bring birds and animals to them for presentations, Bell said.
The Center is open to visitors Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and it takes in animals daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call 753-9505 or visit www.thewildlifecenter.org.