The Wildlife Center of Virginia, a leading teaching and research hospital for wildlife, will present a program on Saturday, January 29 at 1:00 p.m. at the Wild Birds Unlimited Store in Virginia Beach [620 Hilltop West Shopping Center]. 

Claire Thain, a Center environmental educator, will present “Training Raptors” – a program focusing on her work with the Center’s eagles, hawks, and owls.  The program is free and open to the public.

Joining Thain for the program will be:

* Scarlette, a Red-tailed Hawk; and

* Misty, a Barred Owl.      

Thain is the head bird trainer at the Wildlife Center.  She works with the Center’s corps of environmental ambassadors – animals that, because of injuries or behavioral modifications, can’t be released to the wild.  In that capacity, she works with a variety of hawks and owls.

Thain’s “star pupil” is Buddy, the Bald Eagle who hatched at the Norfolk Botanical Garden in 2008 and was admitted to the Center with a severe case of Avian Pox.  Thain will give her first-hand perspectives on Buddy’s training and will share a slide presentation on her work with the young Bald Eagle.  

Every year, more than 2,000 animals – ranging from Bald Eagles to opossums to turtles – are brought to the Wildlife Center for care.  Since its founding in 1982, the nonprofit Center has cared for more than 56,000 wild animals, representing 200 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.  The Center’s public education programs share insights gained through the care of injured and orphaned wild animals, in hopes of reducing human damage to wildlife.  The Center trains veterinary and conservation professionals from all over the world and is actively involved in comprehensive wildlife health studies and the surveillance of emerging diseases.  

Wilds Birds Unlimited, located in Virginia Beach and in Chesapeake, is part of the largest franchise system of backyard bird feeding and nature specialty stores, with more than 270 locations across the United States and Canada.  

The Wildlife Center gratefully acknowledges the support of these local Wild Birds Unlimited stores in offering the 2011 Garden of Eagles calendar to their nature-loving clientele.  Proceeds from the sale of the calendar will benefit the Center and are earmarked for construction of a new permanent flight enclosure for Buddy.  A portion of the proceeds will also benefit the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the Center for Conservation Biology.