I recently took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Appalachian Wildlife Refuge (AWR) as part of a Wildlife Rehabilitation class via the North Carolina Arboretum taught by Carlton Burke, an educator, naturalist, and licensed wildlife rehabilitator. The class was extremely informative and it engendered an enormous amount of respect in me for Carl and other individuals who perform this selfless, stressful, often unpaid service strictly for the love of animals. 

After the lecture, we carpooled to AWR, which is located in a woodsy area of Candler. They don’t publish their physical address to deter individuals from dropping off animals unannounced at all hours, something that could result in death from exposure. Animals deliveries are coordinated through their hotline at (828) 633-6364. They have both outdoor and indoor enclosures at the facility and we were able to tour both, including their huge outdoor enclosure for box turtles. The inside of the facility, basically a modified small home, contains a large food preparation area and different rooms for mammals, incubation/nursery patients, and aquatic animals, along with a tiny office space.   

Shown below are a few of the animals I encountered at the facility. Some were being treated with goal of release, while others, who are unreleasable for various reasons, live out their lives onsite being cared for by AWR. I was impressed by the knowledge, care, and love demonstrated to the animals.  

AWR averages patients per year and also recently completed the certification to rehabilitate black bear cubs, which due to our large and growing population of black bears in the Asheville area, is especially needed.  They run on donations and volunteers. Their volunteer positions include Daily Operations such as Animal Husbandry, Animal Transport, manning the Wildlife Hotline, and Record Keeping. And while many of their onsite animal care volunteers seem to be younger individuals based on my visit, they also have an extremely high need for people who can handle the hotline and arrange to pick-up and transport animals from finders to the facility. Please do consider volunteering and/or donating, any contribution or amount will help and your could help save a wild life.