Conservation is more effective – and more fun – when it’s a collaborative effort, and we have a wonderful partner in Nature’s Nursery.
Dedicated to improving the well-being of Northwest Ohio wildlife populations and habitats, our friends at Nature’s Nursery provide medical care and rehabilitation to injured, orphaned or ailing wild animals. The organization serves 18 counties throughout Northwest Ohio, where they care for more than 2,500 native animals annually, releasing over 50% of them back into the wild. They also provide conservation-focused educational outreach programs that teach the importance of our local wild populations, how to protect their habitats, and how to coexist with the wildlife in our own backyards to more than 15,000 children and adults every year.
Joe Capponi, our field crew leader for this summer season, also serves as an intern with Nature’s Nursery and has helped build the partnership between our organizations, which he says “is a natural fit.”
“At Nature’s Nursery,” Joe explains, “the goal is to rehabilitate wildlife and get them back to their natural habitat. Adults are released to the exact area they were found, but orphaned animals are sent back to the county they came from.”
Releasing the rehabilitated animals into prime habitat gives them the best chance at a fruitful and reproductive life, and the partnership with the Conservancy gives Nature’s Nursery access to the nearly 20,000 acres of land we protect throughout northwest Ohio.
It’s mutually beneficial, because “welcoming these animals home on Conservancy land helps stabilize and reestablish animal populations that are integral to the health of the habitats we work to preserve and protect,” Joe says.
Building this partnership has been “extremely rewarding” for Joe, too, because he works to rehabilitate the animals at Nature’s Nursery and ensures they have quality habitats to return to through his work with the Conservancy.
To date, Nature’s Nursery has released nearly 50 rehabilitated animals on Conservancy property, including:
- 18 opossums
- 8 red squirrels
- 1 mink
Another mink and 20 wood ducks are scheduled to be released soon.
The Conservancy’s Executive Director, Rob Krain, says he looks forward to the organizations’ continued collaboration to “improve our collective impact on our environment by providing habitat for animals to thrive in and thriving animals to keep our lands wild and natural.”
