 Wildlife Response, Inc. (WRI) has received a number of questions concerning our recent Lease Bid Proposal filed with the City of Virginia Beach to develop and operate a wildlife center that, when combined with recent misinformation published in the media, compels us to provide clarifying information on a few issues. WRI is the appropriate party to operate a Wildlife Center in Virginia Beach WRI has provided nearly 20 years of wildlife rehabilitation services to Hampton Roads, and has long been the region’s most active organization helping rehabilitate the region’s injured and orphaned wildlife, whereas the competing bidder WREN was only organized in April 2011, and its member organizations have been providing wildlife rehabilitation services for far less time than WRI. WRI plays a major role in Hampton Roads Wildlife Care WRI has the most comprehensive network of licensed home-based rehabilitators in Hampton Roads and works with the majority of the area’s rehabilitators. According to the latest published (October 21st 2011) figures from the Virginia Department of Game & Inland Fisheries, 39 of the 68 actual licensed rehabilitators (57.4%) from the Hampton Roads Metropolitan Area are affiliated with Wildlife Response. These same figures indicate that only 5 (7.4%) are affiliated with the VBSPCA and only 8 (11.8 %) are affiliated with Evelyn’s Wildlife Refuge. Some of the rehabbers listed are also independent, and/or rehab for more than one group. WRI cares for a wide variety of Wildlife Species WRI has comprehensive wildlife rehabilitation experience and the broad knowledge needed to appropriately lead an initiative aimed at serving the wide range of wildlife in our area, including all types and species of birds and waterfowl, deer, mammals (including high risk rabies species), reptiles and amphibians (Lisa Barlow, WRI President is listed at the top of the VDGIF directory of rehabilitators for Virginia Beach and is licensed for 8 different categories of Wildlife). WRI and its many experienced rehabbers remain an indispensable resource and support organization for Hampton Roads, as well as our region’s home-based wildlife rehabilitation network. WRI is a team player WRI works with over three dozen wildlife and related volunteer groups providing wildlife care in Hampton Roads, as well as numerous other groups in surrounding states, and will continue to do so. As has been stated many times, WRI has no plans to eliminate or replace any wildlife rehabilitation services currently offered, and is only seeking to enhance its working structure with the existing network of area rehabbers.In response to a request from the Mayor of Virginia Beach on August 18th, 2011, that the two lease bidders try to work together and develop a joint proposal, WRI began communicating in good faith with WREN’s designated representative towards development of a joint proposal for the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. Information was exchanged by the two groups pertaining to each group’s strengths and the proposed structure and composition of an entity that would be organized to submit the joint proposal. When a date for a proposed collaboration meeting had been tentatively chosen, the VBSPCA suddenly insisted that both the VBSPCA and Evelyn’s Wildlife Refuge be separately and equally represented at the meeting. Believing that this was contrary to the Mayor’s request that the two bidding entities work together, WRI protested, as it was clear that the entity known as WREN wanted to be represented in its several parts, each with its own share of representative authority, in an obvious move to bias discussions, decisions and agreements in their favor and to the detriment of WRI. Moreover, when WRI requested that the meeting be limited to representatives from WREN and WRI, WREN’s designated contact stated in an email response to WRI: “There is no WREN, no Board of Directors, no formal agreement, no by-laws, no governance structure, no existing structure . . . .” This admission alone demonstrates that the organizations comprising WREN misrepresented its status in their proposal to the City, which states that WREN was formed as a 509(a)(3) organization. As a result of this misrepresentation by WREN’s component organizations, and their subsequent failure to collaborate in good faith as the one named entity that submitted a proposal, WRI withdrew from any further collaboration discussions with WREN and notified WREN’s designated representative and VBSPCA leadership of its decision on Tuesday, November 1, 2011. Developing a Wildlife Center has long been a Wildlife Response initiative In an effort to support WRI’s network of home-based rehabilitators, planning has been underway for six years to develop a Wildlife Center which could support rehabilitators throughout the Hampton Roads region. WRI formalized those plans and presented architectural drawings & renderings to the City of Virginia Beach in January 2010. After extensive public meetings for over a year with the City’s ITA study, WRI’s Conditional Use Permit was unanimously approved by Planning Commission on February 9th 2011, and again by City Council in May of 2011. Fundraising is in strong hands WRI’s Capital Campaign and Fund-Development Director is Kathy Owens, former naval aviator and President of Beach Development Group. Kathy is receiving consulting assistance from Keith Roots, current Capital Campaign Director at CNU, and Mike Herron, General Manager and Associate Publisher of Inside Business, among others. |
| Clarity on the Wildlife Center |