Financial Woes Will Close Wild Animal Care Facility

A Huntington Beach facility that cares for injured or orphaned wild animals will close for lack of funds, and 75 animals will be relocated, officials said Tuesday.

The Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center of Orange County, the primary facility in the county for ill or abandoned wildlife, said it will no longer accept animals other than those rescued from oil spills.

Gary Gorman, facilities manager, said the center at Newland Street and Pacific Coast Highway does not have enough money to pay for upgrades needed to keep its city permit. The animals will be sent to other facilities or returned to the wild, Gorman said, a process that could take one or two months. At that point, he said, the center will cease operations.

Between $45,000 and $50,000 in improvements ranging from paving the parking lot to providing wheelchair access would be necessary for the center to meet city codes, Gorman said. The organization’s annual budget from public and private sources is $65,000.

News of the center’s imminent closure surprised agencies that use it, including the animal control division of the Newport Beach Police Department.

“We use them daily” to handle injured, starving and fledgling birds, said Jamye Rogers, a Newport animal control officer.

Rogers said the center’s closure will mean most creatures that the department picks up will now be euthanized.

It also means the end of employment for the center’s three paid part-time staffers, including Gorman.

“I’m terribly upset by it,” he said. “The fact that we are not getting enough support for it and knowing that all these animals [that the center cannot treat] will die is gut-wrenching.”

More than 100 kinds of creatures--pelicans, opossums, coyotes, gray foxes and squirrels--have been cared for and nursed back to health since the facility opened two years ago, Gorman said. It has been accepting 15 to 20 animals daily from as far away as Henderson, Nev.

The organization does not receive funding from the cities it serves, with the exception of Newport Beach, and it has struggled to make improvements so it can meet permit requirements, Gorman said. Fund-raisers might provide enough cash for the center to reopen, he said, but it is not clear whether or when that would happen.