An art auction to raise money for the Northern Lights Wildlife Shelter has been deemed a success by the shelter owner.
Angelika Langen said the $4,100 raised will go toward the rescue and care of wildlife in need.
“We were super pleased to see how supportive people were and the bids that they did on the items,” she said. “ And I think the artists were really pleased too, that their work got valued and will help the animals in return.”
This past spring, the shelter released 124 bears that were in their care.
That number is up significantly from the previous year of around 70 bears.
Langen said that new this year, 42 of the bears they released were fitted with radio collars.
“It is a new program that we started, a study program where we have a master's student from the University of Victoria on it to follow the data, and we want to find out over the next five years, with various students, how those bears are doing out there, what the survival rates are, disbursement range and so on and so forth, all the information that we can glean from watching their travels.”
Langen added they are very excited to see the data and happy this program, which has been in the works for years, has finally launched
So far this year, the shelter is on par with hitting the same high numbers as last year.
“The big change comes in the fall, September, October, November, always our highest intake,” she said. “And I'm assuming that with the fires and droughts and flooding, and everything that's happening this year, that we'll probably see high numbers again.”
She hopes this trend of taking in more and more bears every year ends.
“This is hard to sustain, having those 124 bears feeding them and then also releasing them has really diminished our resources, financial resources, and I don't know if we would even be able to commit that many again, depending, you know, what donations are like here in the next few months, that will really limit on what we can do. And with all the disasters going on, there and people wanting to help elsewhere, we have certainly seen quite a drop in donations.”
Anyone wanting to help out the shelter can visit its website for ways to do so.
