VPM Digital

Watch with your child Thursday, October 15 at 11 a.m. as Elmo and friends explore identities and race.

Passion Projects’ premieres Thursday, September 24 at 9 p.m. and explores how an idea to connect people across the world turned into “Portals” a living art project.

VPM is once again participating in the 23rd Annual Harrisonburg International Festival which will be held online from September 12 - 20. The virtual community event will include recorded performances by international community members, a list of food vendors offering take-out, and free downloadable kids’ activities.

Wildlife rehabilitation handles a wide variety of animals, and all of the misfortunes they might encounter: cat attacks, lead poisoning, vehicle accidents and entanglement injuries, just to name a few.

For example, when a number of box turtles were being treated for severe sinus and ear infections, it was clear that a root cause needed to be investigated. These turtles were often so severely affected that their heads were too swollen to retract into their shells. Examinations showed a common thread: They were deficient in vitamin A. In order to spot and investigate problems on this scale, a lot of details are needed. The intake of each animal involves multiple questions: Where was it found? Were there others nearby? What are its symptoms? What is known about how it was injured?

Millions of animals around the globe are migrating as they always have. Whales, caribou and hundreds of other species roam great distances in search of better places for eating, mating and bearing their young.

Veterinary training at the Wildlife Center of Virginia has several goals. First, these future veterinarians and veterinary technicians provide medical care to the center’s many patients. The goal is to eventually return these animals to their natural environments, when they are well enough to be safe there. These students also conduct health studies on wildlife to enhance their understanding of common diseases, and help to share information about wildlife health to policymakers and the general public.

It’s important to remember that domestic cats are not wild animals. About half of the domestic cats wandering freely in the United States are feral, meaning they have no human owners. But even those are domestic cats and lack the behaviors and characteristics of true wildlife. For example, they don’t control their population according to the availability of their prey, as most wild predators do.

Human habits are the root cause of plenty of illness and injury, some man-made technology is crucial to guiding these wild patients back to health.

You have probably encountered a wild animal that is sick, injured or orphaned. While it’s tempting to take these creatures under your own wing and nurse them back to health, they will usually need a trained wildlife rehabilitator to get back on the right track. Their goal is to help animals become strong and healthy enough to return to their natural habitats.