Covering the cost: Nova Scotia's Hope for Wildlife among charities struggling post COVID-19

Like many charities and businesses, Hope for Wildlife Animal Rehabilitation Centre in Seaforth, N.S., has been having a hard time maintaining operational costs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We saw the corporate donations start to dry up through the two years of COVID, but now we’re seeing less and less from the individual, which I totally understand because of the rising cost of everything,” says founder Hope Swinimer.

Hope for Wildlife has been running on donations since first opening in 1997.

The facility treats a variety of animals and sees about 5,000 to 7,000 each year.

However, a budget of $1.5 million is needed to breakeven. Anything above that goes toward renovations, cages, and new habitats.

“There’s so many things that you don’t even think about that cost money. The price of food has gone really high and we have really unique needs here. We have to feed very specific diets to our patients,” says Swinimer.

The wildlife hospital sees different animal injuries and needs each day – running tests such as x-rays to provide a diagnosis.

“This is a fantastic hospital and Nova Scotia is absolutely lucky to have it,” says veterinarian Dr. Hazel Eaglesome.

Meantime, high demand doesn’t balance out with affordability.

“We also have a 24-hour, seven day a week drop-off hospital here and the veterinary hospital costs a lot to run,” says Swinimer.