Nancy Kimball is a certified wildlife rehabilitator with North Country Wildcare (NCWC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping injured or orphaned wild animals. NCWC’s rehabilitators cover Schenectady, Warren, Washington, Saratoga, Albany, Rensselaer, Montgomery, Fulton and Essex counties in upstate New York.
Any rehabilitator’s goal is to ultimately nurse a wild animal back to full strength and then release it back into its natural habitat. But sometimes, an animal’s injury might be extensive enough that it is not able to be returned to the wild.
That’s how Kimball ended up with Sam the Saw Whet Owl, Justin the Barred Owl and Cassie the Kestrel Falcon. Sam, Justin and Cassie now serve as educational birds to help teach the public about wildlife.
Kimball’s daughter, Wendy Carroll, is an art teacher in the B-P district and arranged for her mom to bring all three birds of prey to Broadalbin-Perth Junior-Senior High School this week for an educational assembly in the B-P auditorium. Several high school teachers and students were able to attend the program in-person. The program was also live streamed to all classrooms in the district — pre-K through 12 — and was also made available to all remote students.
After bringing each bird out individually for the students to get a closer look, Kimball participated in a question and answer session – taking questions from older students in-person, as well as elementary students who were live streaming the presentation.
Through her work at North Country Wildcare, Kimball takes in several types of animals including squirrels, rabbits, deer, skunks, opossum, bobcats, foxes, chipmunks, porcupines, birds of all kinds including hawks, eagles and owls, and more.
At the assembly, Kimball told the students that although she loves taking care of baby squirrels, they are very time consuming because they need to be hand-fed formula around the clock. She currently is taking care of a female opossum that has babies in her pouch — although she’s not sure how many babies there are and won’t find out until they are big enough to come out of the pouch on their own.
There are several ways that community members can become involved with North Country Wildcare including donating, sponsoring, fundraising, assisting with the hotline, or becoming a wildlife rehabilitator. The group meets every month. New members and supporters are welcome.
If you find a wild animal in distress, please call the North Country Wildcare hotline number: 518-954-6740
You can read more about the organization on their website: http://www.northcountrywildcare.org/