Wildlife Warriors – Sue Meech of Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre

I remember arriving at Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre for the first time. I had been expecting some remote farm-like centre tucked away in the deep Ontario countryside. Instead, the rumbling truck ferrying me to my new job and home pulled into a house driveway a few minutes outside of Napanee. This wildlife centre is an integral part of the local community, available at all times to the needs of the people and animals around it. And its location reflects that.

Its location also reflects its humble beginnings. Sue Meech, founder of Sandy Pines, didn’t envision her life like this. She came to Canada in 1964, but had already filled her life with adventures by that point, from backpacking New Zealand to taking the six-week boat trip from England to Australia – twice. A nurse by trade, Sue and her husband lived in this inconspicuous home on County Road 2 for years before the first wildlife came to her doors.

‘It was all an accident,’ Sue told me, ‘I never planned to do this with my life.’

Always an avid animal lover, her career with helping animals didn’t start with wildlife. It started with kittens. It was her association with the local Humane Society that brought the wild ones to her. In 1994, they called her up and asked if she would take care of some orphaned raccoons, as the previous carer had had an unfortunate incident with her dog and the raccoon pups the year before. Oh course, Sue said yes. “I thoroughly enjoyed them,” she said, “they were so intelligent.” Intelligent might not be the first word that springs to mind for many people when they think of raccoons, but having worked with them for four months, I can truly attest to that. Needing a constant source of enrichment to stimulate them and avoid boredom, it was both brilliant and frustrating to watch them solve a puzzle you’d spent half an hour devising in about ten seconds.

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The raccoons kept coming, with fifteen orphans the second year and thirty-five the third. “This was when rehabilitating wasn’t illegal, but it wasn’t legal. I had no authorisation, anyone could do it.” Regulation for wildlife rehabilitation didn’t appear in Ontario until 1997, when the Ministry of Natural Resources brought out the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act. It’s incredible to think that Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre has grown from this small number to taking in over four thousand patients each year.

Anyone who’s met Sue will know she’s a force of nature. No-nonsense and the boss in any relationship, it’s no surprise when she describes her late husband as a follower. “He learned never to say no to me. He loved animals too, fortunately. He was quite on board. He wasn’t very good though, he was scared.” Vaccinating unwilling raccoons would be scary to anyone inexperienced in the process, but not Sue. She had to send him away and finish the job herself.

Sandy Pines really took off in that third year, when a woman named Faye Wan, who was adopting a dog from Sue, asked about her fundraising. When Sue admitted she did none, Faye insisted on starting for her. Recruiting a network of friends, Faye fundraised in earnest, spreading the word about the work Sue was doing. This word of mouth brought birds, squirrels and other small mammals to the centre from all over Napanee and beyond. While the centre now has a large, modern hospital, back then it all took place in a two-roomed outbuilding.

At first, Sue only looked after mammals, but when the local wild bird carer – Kit Chubb, known as the Bird Lady of Verona – became ill, Sue was forced to step in. It started with the water birds – ducks, geese, swans – then the song birds. Eventually Kit couldn’t take raptors, though she loved working with them, and there really was nobody else in the area to pick up the slack. “So I started doing birds. And birds were very difficult for me because… I was scared of them and they’re totally different to mammals: their organs are all different, their needs are different and I was very intimidated by them.” But like everything else, the raptors became a normal part of Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre.

By this point there was far too much work for Sue to take on alone. That’s when the volunteers started coming. Some of these original volunteers still help at the centre to this day. In 2002 Sandy Pines became a registered charity. Then in 2005, Leah Birmingham joined the team full-time. Leah is a qualified Vet Tech and lecturer who met Sue at a talk Sue was giving to her class in 2001. Sue happened to mention she was hiring and Leah jumped at the chance, becoming a Summer Student at SPWC. Four years later, Sue offered her a full-time but seasonal position. Leah’s passion for wildlife rehabilitation was so great she left a year-round job for this. She became Sandy Pines’ first full-time employee and is now Assistant Director of the organisation. She was the first of many staff members to join the team, all of whom share a similar level of passion for the work.

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Even with all the different patients that have come to the centre over the years, Sue’s favourite still remains the raccoons. “They’re so smart, so entertaining to watch”. She loved working with small numbers of them at a time as that gave her a chance to get to know them on a very individual basis. Anyone not familiar with wildlife might be surprised at how different their personalities can be, even within the same species. It’s something I’ve seen over and over again, from the raccoons here at Sandy Pines, to the vervet monkeys of Malawi, to the dolphins of Monkey Mia in Australia.

Her most unusual patient was an albatross that came in several years ago. “We had somebody calling from Kingston…he said he found an albatross on the beach. Well, we all had a really good laugh, we thought it was just a ring-billed gull, and the man just didn’t know the difference. Anyway, he brought it in, and it was an albatross.”

What makes this so unusual is that there was no reason for the bird to be anywhere in Canada, let alone near Sandy Pines. While there are several albatross species found in Canadian oceanic waters, none ever step foot on its soil. “We really couldn’t fathom how we got this bird…he was scared of water.” But Sue has a theory: he might have been trapped by a long liner out in the Atlantic and brought onto the boat. “A live albatross at sea is a good omen.” A dead one is not. She believes the sailors kept him on the boat until the Port of Montréal, where he was let go and flew down river towards Kingston. But who knows where he really came from.

After a long, red-taped-filled process, they sent the bird to the US in the hopes of finding him a better place to recover. Unfortunately, as so often happens in wildlife rehabilitation, he didn’t survive. An albatross in Canada was so unusual the story spread all over the country. People called up constantly, asking to see the unusual bird; some even offered money to take photos with it. Of course Sue said no.

Read more about the unusual story here.

For anyone thinking of starting into wildlife rehabilitation, Sue has this advice: “don’t do it unless you’ve got a partner who’s committed to helping you. I wouldn’t do it if I had kids. The animals have to be your priority. Get into it slowly. Feel your way in slowly, then you won’t get overwhelmed.” Wildlife rehabilitation and conservation is not just a career, it’s a whole lifestyle. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my wildlife work so far, it’s that this work requires passion and dedication, more so than almost any other career. You have to be fully committed to it, often to the point of sacrificing many aspects of what most people would consider a “normal” life. And it’s not the kind of work you can do alone, as Sue learned early on.

Life at Sandy Pines isn’t always easy or enjoyable. The reality of working with wild patients can often be brutal. “One of the more changing moments in my career was when I went to help a deer that had been hit on the road and it had dragged itself to a field. Every time I tried to walk towards it it would try to drag itself away.” Though she had a syringe full of tranquiliser in her hand, she knew that wasn’t going to work. “I knew that deer could kill me. The farmer said ‘do you want me to shoot it?’. I said, ‘I think that would be the safest thing and probably the kindest thing’. And so he did, and I made myself watch. It was clean and it was quick. And I thought ‘I gotta get me a gun, so I can do that’. “

And that’s what she did. “And I took lessons,” she said, acknowledging the importance of safety over everything.

This might seem harsh to many people, but one of the most important things I’ve learned is the ability to let a patient go. You can’t save them all and you have to know when to keep fighting and when to put an animal out of its misery. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to point a gun at an animal and pull the trigger, but I respect that Sue can.

Now that the Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre has a large team of staff, interns and volunteers to cover most of the work, Sue has more time to spend with her many, many adopted animals. These include seven dogs, seven cats, two horses, one pony, two donkeys, a goat, a very large pig named Percy, several lovebirds, three peacocks and a host of chickens, ducks and geese. Like the wildlife, each of these animals found their way to Sandy Pines Wildlife Centrelooking for somewhere safe. And they found that somewhere.

When I asked Sue if she ever wished for a normal life, something I’ve asked myself a few times over the years, her answer is short and emphatic: “No, not for one minute.”

I understand completely.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION:

• Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre is located just a few minutes southwest of the town of Napanee on County Road 2. It’s about 45 minutes west of Kingston and 30 minutes east of Belleville. Find them on Google Maps here.
• The centre takes in any injured wild animal, but not domestics. If you find an injured wild animal, they will happily take your call. Their phone number is (613) 354-0264.
• The centre is not open to public tours to ensure the best care for their patients, many of whom are in delicate stages of recovery and must be disturbed as little as possible. Patients in outside pens are kept separate to prevent humanisation before release. There is a small gift shop in the reception area with books, cards, postcards, SPWC shirts, sweaters, hats, etc. All proceeds and donations go directly back into the organisation. Sandy Pines receives no government funding and relies entirely on donations to cover their many costs.
• Volunteers are always welcome and provide important services. Currently there are over 200 volunteers helping at Sandy Pines. From drivers to fundraisers, doing tax receipts to working with the animals at the clinic, there are always ways to help out.
• Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre runs an internship project, with interns playing an important role at the centre, particularly in the busy Spring and Summer seasons. Accommodation is provided in Sue’s house and a small stipend is given to cover food costs. It’s a fantastic programme for anyone wanting to further a career in wildlife rehabilitation. Check out the Sandy Pines website for more information on the internship.
• I highly recommend following Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre on Facebook. Here they post information about fundraising events, wildlife news from Ontario and updates on some of the patients in care.

Wildlife Warriors is a new series of posts I will be writing focusing on individuals dedicated to helping wildlife. Do you know of any Wildlife Warriors? I’d love to hear about them, so tell me in the comments below!

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