Program:
Visitor/Educational Outreach Center
- Budget:
-
$18,000
- Category:
-
Environment
- Population Served:
-
Children and Youth (infants - 19 years.)
-
Adults
-
General Public/Unspecified
Program Description:
Studies show that 80-90% of Americans consider themselves environmentalist and believe we should take measures to preserve critical wildlife habitat and our sensitive ecosystem. The Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill brought wildlife conservation into the fore front of the world. Our direct involvement with this spill brought to fruition the necessity of a visitor/education center to share our mission and progress. Our area see's millions of visitors every year; as a local attraction, we believe a Center will continue to promote wildlfe conservation, habitat restoration and bird monitoring. We participate in several local events with our live animal ambassadors who inspire, excite and capture audiences of all ages and help convey our message of conservation and rehabilitation.
Program Long-Term Success:
The Center will provide an up close look at the natural behavious of wildlife to the general public. It will also afford college and high school students interested in veterinary services, animal related services and environmental studies a place to come and learn hands-on how their education can be utilized to save our precious natural environment. As the county's only licensed wildlife sanctuary, Kritter, Inc. provides community outreach programs throughout Northwest Florida; the new facility will further enhance our ability to reach the general public.
Program Short-Term Success:
The Center will help teach and encourage individuals to create their own wildlife habitats in their backyards and provide for their local avian species. Proper nutritioinal diets, basic rehabilitation and animal natural behavious are examples of the classes that will be taught at the Center.
Program Success Monitored by:
The Visitor/Educational Outreach Center will be monitored by the Board of Directors, specifically our Educational Coordinators, Kim Evans and Amy Furbee.
Program Success Examples:
The owners of the Hombre Golf Course donated the land use for the Sanctuary and asked Kritter, Inc. to install a bluebird trail. We currently monitor a trail of 30 nest boxes around the course for awareness and importance of migratory birds. We have since added a trail of 15 red belly woodpecker nest boxes and two racks, a total of 24 gourds for purple martins. One of the local boy scout clubs routinely uses our trails as an educational backdrop for the scouts working on their environment "patch".
Program:
Raptor Flight Pen
- Budget:
-
$20,000
- Category:
-
Animal-Related
- Population Served:
-
General Public/Unspecified
Program Description:
As the only wildlife sanctuary in Bay County and only facility large enough to acommodate such a large structure, our flight pen will be built to exceed the minimum standards set by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for migratory avian species routinely rehabilitated at our facility. Our location is accessible to other rehabilitators in surrounding counties to assist with their rehabilitation needs, which ultimately helps the avian species as a whole. The increasing number of threatened and endangered species demands that we do our part, take measures to support injured wildlife and return them back into the wild recovered and rehabilitated.
Program Long-Term Success:
A flight pen is the essential key component to raptor and avian rehabilitation services. Avian species must practice flight movements in order to recondition and strengthen their flight muscles prior to release. In addition to the bald eagle, many other avian species like our shoregbirds, marsh birds and even smaller songbirds will benefit from this integral part of rehabilitation. Long term success will be measureed by the increased number of birds our facility can rehabilitate.
Program Short-Term Success:
It is imperative that we be good stewards to our natural environment, preserve and conserve our world and for those of us who take on the challenge to rehabilitate our magnificent wildlife, we need the ability and facilities to succeed in our mission.
Program Success Monitored by:
This program is monitored by US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Program Success Examples:
Photographs and videos will be posted on our website for public viewing of successful releases.
Program:
Wildlife Rehabilitation
- Budget:
-
$80,000
- Category:
-
Animal-Related
- Population Served:
-
General Public/Unspecified
-
Children and Youth (infants - 19 years.)
-
Adults
Program Description:
Kritter, Inc's daily operational goal is to rehabilitate and release all orphaned and injured wildlife indigenous to Northwest Florida in accordance with wildlife management practices governed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. We have cared for and released over 2000 wild animals since 2008. Kritter, Inc and its core volunteers opened its doors to distressed wildlife in the early stages of the oil spill and continued involvement and deployment during the catastrophic Deep Water Horizon Gulf oil spill. We joined forces with the Incident Command as capture crew team members to assist and instruct how to properly capture distressed wildife and transport them safely to the Stabilization Center for further treatment. The Sanctuary personnel also volunteer and assist with the local Turtle Watch organization on nest site location/relocation and the monitoring of emerging hatchlings. We provide volunteers and assist as an Eagle Watch Coordinator on Tyndall AFB where we monitor and document new and existing Bald Eagle nest sites.
Program Long-Term Success:
Kritter, Inc. continues to expand our volunteer membership and grow our rehabilitation sanctuary to include expanding our services into other surrounding counties. When we opened our doors in 2008, we took in over 230 animals, releasing 30%. In 2009, our intake numbers increased to over 490 animals with a release average of 50%. Our success in 2010 continues to improve with well over 675 animals to date and a success rate of 65%
Program Short-Term Success:
We continue to successfully release 65% of all patients admitted to the Sanctuary. We assisted in the capture of over 600 distressed birds from the Deep Water Horizon Gulf oil spill and helped transfer over 14,000 sea turtle eggs. We stand trained and willing to once again open our Sanctuary should another disaster occur in the future.
Program Success Monitored by:
Kritter, Inc. is a registered 501c(3) non-profit organization and licensed under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act from US Fish and Wildlife Services and the State of Florida.
Program Success Examples:
Our website reveals photographs of our successful releases captured by video along with snapshots of educational programs conducted throughout the surrounding counties of our outreach programs. View our site at
www.kritterinc.com