CITY WILDLIFE INC

Our goals are:\n•To manage a rescue center to assist sick, orphaned, and injured wild animals and return them to the wild;\n•To promote the enjoyment of native wildlife and harmonious co-existence with wild animals; and\n•To protect the District of Columbia’s wild places for animal habitats.

In pursuit of its goals to protect wildlife in the District of Columbia, City Wildlife currently provides five foundational programs for the community.\n\n1) The City Wildlife rehabilitation center (15 Oglethorpe Street, NW) accepts ill, injured, and orphaned native wild animals every day of the year, including weekends and holidays, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The goal is to treat the animals and return them to the wild once they recover and are able to survive on their own.\n2) Each year, City Wildlife staff responds to thousands of telephone and email inquiries about wildlife and requests for information as to how to help and live in harmony with native wild animals. Timely information on wildlife is also distributed through the organization's website and social media accounts. Finally, the center provides frequent and free educational programs on wildlife to schools, civic groups, and the public. \n3) Every spring and fall, City Wildlife's Lights Out DC volunteers monitor a portion of the downtown area for migratory birds that have collided with windows. Injured victims are brought to the center for rehabilitation; dead birds are donated to scientific institutions. The data is used to identify problematic buildings and suggest steps property managers can take to ameliorate the problem.\n4) City Wildlife's Duck Watch program aids nesting Mallards by protecting nests and helping families with newly hatched birds get to bodies of water. They often have to help duck families cross busy roadways, navigate curbs and steps, get down from roofs and balconies, and get out of enclosed courtyards. They also disperse information to help people understand and aid nesting urban ducks, and they consult with home owners and property managers on making their sites more duck-friendly.\n5) Finally, City Wildlife networks with an active coalition of other local environmental organizations to advocate for the protection of the natural areas in District of Columbia, such as Kenilworth Park and Kingman and Heritage Islands, to ensure that these areas remain safe havens for wildlife.

City Wildlife maintains all of the required government permits that allow it to work with wild animals. Its rehabilitation clinic is directed by Dr. Cheryl Chooljian, a veterinarian who specializes in the care and treatment of wild animals. The surgical suite where she practices is fully equipped with digital radiograph, anesthesia apparatus, blood testing machines, and a comprehensive veterinary pharmacy. Experienced staff wildlife rehabilitators and a trained corps of volunteers assist in the animals' care and treatment, and the center maintains an array of different housing and dietary options for the variety of species with which it works. The staff at the center is also trained to field the many phone calls and emails it receives on wildlife behavior and how to alleviate conflicts with wild animals in a humane manner.\n\nLights Out DC also maintains the permits the program needs. (Duck Watch does not require any permits.) Volunteers for both programs undergo extensive training from seasoned veterans before undertaking their duties. Data and statistics from Lights Out DC is published on the City Wildlife website, where comprehensive Duck Watch information is also available. Ultimately, the two all-volunteer programs are building a connected and educated community of wildlife-friendly urbanites.\n\nCity Wildlife coordinates with other local environmental groups -- DC Audubon Society, DC Environmental Network, Anacostia Watershed Society, Audubon Naturalist Society, DC Sierra Club, and others -- to advocate for the preservation of natural lands in the District of Columbia for wildlife habitat. Of particular interest to the coalition is keeping Kingman/Heritage Island and South Kenilworth Park as habitat that works for wildlife.

Since City Wildlife was incorporated in 2008, it has opened the first-ever wildlife rehabilitation clinic in the District of Columbia and launched its very successful Lights Out DC and Duck Watch programs. The rehabilitation center currently treats about 7,000 animals each year. Of these, about 300 patients each year are listed as Species of Greatest Conservation Need by DC’s Wildlife Action Plan. Telephone and email advice on wild animals and how to help them is available between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. 365 days of the year, and City Wildlife staff posts educational content on social media accounts several times a week. Finally, educational programs, which are held online for the most part during the pandemic, happen throughout the year. Many of these are aimed specifically at young people.\n\nCity Wildlife's Lights Out DC program marked its tenth anniversary in 2020 with a special report on the problem of bird/glass collisions in the District of Columbia. This report and all of the program's data is available on the City Wildlife website. Lights Out DC data has been used by Smithsonian conservation biologists to quantify the problem of window strikes in the U.S. Meanwhile, at the urging of Lights Out DC, several downtown buildings have taken effective steps to prevent birds from colliding with their windows.\n\nDuck Watch volunteers monitor and assist between 60 and 70 nests each year. They have also been instrumental in constructing duck ramps in pools and channeled bodies of water to make them usable for families of waterfowl. \n\nAll of the above efforts of City Wildlife have attracted the attention and aid of governmental agencies, nonprofits, and the public, and they have been featured in local, national, and even international media reports.\n\nAreas of growth for City Wildlife include efforts to expand the number of individual animals and species it can treat at its rehabilitation center, continuing to expand the reach and effectiveness of Lights Out DC and Duck Watch, increasing the organization's active participation in a growing coalition of environmental groups that focus on the preservation of wildlife habitat, and reaching ever more people -- especially through work in schools -- with practical information to help local wildlife thrive for the enjoyment of all.