We're grateful to the community for helping us complete the Take Flight Project Capital Campaign! This project, the first capital campaign in West Sound Wildlife's history, raised $575,000 and built two facilities: a state-of-the-art flight cage (the C. Keith Birkenfeld Flight Cage) and waterfowl enclosure that can also serve as a facility to care for oiled birds in the case of an oil spill.
The Waterfowl Enclosure
On July 16, 2011, we were delighted to open the Wildlife Shelter's new waterfowl enclosure. This facility will allow waterfowl of all types (from ducklings to herons, cormorants to gulls) to practice the swimming and diving skills they'll use when they're released to the wild.
The waterfowl enclosure is essentially a series of large pools, each separated from the other so each species group can enjoy its privacy.
A robust filtration system will keep the pools clean and fresh, allowing these patients to swim and dive, building muscles they’ll need in the wild. At the moment, waterfowl patients have to make do with shallow pools and occasional swims in the bathtub, neither of which are ideal physical therapy for these aquatic athletes.
An exciting secondary feature of the new waterfowl enclosure is that it will also serve as a place to clean and care for birds that might be contaminated in an oil spill. With oil spills happening on a regular basis around the Puget Sound, we are proud to be the only oiled-bird facility on the western side of the Sound.
In the case of a disaster, we’ll be standing ready to tend the oiled waterfowl and get them back to the lives the were leading before human society spoiled their environment.
The C. Keith Birkenfeld Flight Cage
