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Jane George and Dan Soboleski of Stay Wild Rescue and Rehabilitation sit among their 19 fawns rescued this year. The fawns will be released this September. Photo by Laura Gallup.
By Laura Gallup
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While educators across the U.S. worked quickly this past March to implement virtual learning due to COVID, many had to contend with kids and pets running around their new work-from-home spaces “like a zoo.” Trumansburg high school teacher Jane George knows the feeling.
“It’s very hard to teach a class with five fawns in the house crying for their bottles,” George said. “But I tried to make it fun. I’d let the kids see the fawns and the woodchuck. But it was hard to focus on school.”
On top of full-time jobs, George and her husband, Dan Soboleski, run Stay Wild Rescue and Rehabilitation, a service for wild and domestic animals, out of their home in Trumansburg. They respond to calls for injured or abandoned animals and care for them at their home and 5-acre property. They spend hours every day feeding baby animals and nursing animals back to health after accidents or mistreatment.
“For both of us, whenever we’re not doing work at our other jobs, we’re doing this,” George said.
Currently, they have 38 domestic animals living in permanent sanctuary and a pack of wildlife that’s waiting to be released. There are also 21 adoptable cats and kittens spread out across foster homes in the area. George says that on top of dealing with a pandemic, this year has been their busiest yet with animals.
“Luckily, we rarely have to turn animals away,” George said. “But every year, we get double the amount we had last year. Last year, we released 10 fawns. Now, we have 19.”
George grew up on a local dairy farm and said she has been helping animals since she was young. After taking in cats and kittens since about 2005, she got her Department of Environmental Conservation wildlife rehabilitation certification in 2015, which enables her to legally work with certain wild animals in her home. Since then, she and
Soboleski have watched the operation grow as more and more people found out about it.
“Social media has allowed people from all over to contact us and find out about us,” George said. “That’s something we weren’t really anticipating. I never intended to try to do this full time; it’s always just been a passion of mine. I was just content to do it as a volunteer in my spare time. But it’s grown so much. It could easily be a full-time job.”
The couple runs the operation with their own money and with the help of small donations, volunteers and discounts from vets and animal hospitals. This year, they received two grants from Trumansburg Rotary Club to help with their growing endeavor: one for better fencing for the fawns and another to expand the volunteer area, including money for a hand-washing sink.
George said she couldn’t help nearly as many animals without her dedicated group of volunteers — mostly students or former students.
“Teaching and this go really well together because so many of my students have become interested in it,” George said. “Quite a few students have gotten certified now to be wildlife rehabbers too. We have a group thread, and I just send a message out saying, ‘Fawn in Ithaca, who can pick up?’ and someone goes to get it. It’s been really great.”
Sisters Kelly, Jessica and Cassie Proctor and their mother Mary are all volunteers at Stay Wild. Kelly and Jessica have their DEC certifications, allowing Kelly to take in about 40 rabbits this year, making her an area expert on caring for the species.
The four currently live together and take turns feeding their many foster kittens. Kelly said she loves getting the chance to help animals in need and is happy to take some of the burden off of George.
“Three red squirrels were brought to us because they were found in water and their mom had drowned, and they had pneumonia,” Kelly said. “Now, they’re in the woods, enjoying all the pine cones they can find. Releasing them out into the world and knowing you helped them get to that point is the best part because if you didn’t step in, they might not have survived at all.”
Kelly, 19, attended the New Visions program in her senior year of high school and was placed at the Cornell Janet L. Swanson Wildlife Hospital, where she got her first experience with rabbits. This year, she attended one semester at Paul Smith College for fishery and wildlife sciences.
She is now gearing up to start her first semester at Ithaca College for English and writing and said she wants to learn to write to be able to bring awareness to important issues, including the welfare of animals. She’s even considering a career in education, she said, partly because of how much George influenced her life.
“Throughout high school, I felt a close bond with many of my teachers,” Kelly said. “Getting into the teaching field would be like a way to continue that on. If there’s a woman I want to become, it would be someone like Jane. She’s just so empowering.”
As the scope of Stay Wild grows, George looks to the future.
“At this point, we realize there’s a real need, and we want to meet that need, so we’re committed to trying to expand this,” George said. “We would like to go full throttle in becoming a nonprofit, make a really beautiful space and move some of it out of our home and have more volunteers be able to come help. If everything was in the barn, we could have volunteers spend the night to give us a break and not have so many overnight shifts.”
The more animals they take in, the more food, shelter and medical costs rise. George said that when things slow down a bit this winter, she hopes to start the paperwork to become a nonprofit.
By good luck, an anonymous donor recently sent money for the creation of a website, which will be live in the next few weeks. The site will help Stay Wild form a more organized cat adoption process, serve as a resource for community members with questions and become a landing page for donation collection.
Until then, donations can be made at the PayPal link on the Stay Wild Facebook and Instagram pages. George said she looks forward to being able to connect with more people and educate the public on how to take care of our furry friends.
“If everybody does their part and cares for wildlife, the wild world can coexist so much easier with the human world,” George said. “My philosophy is that every life deserves a chance.”
September 7, 2020
The Fawns Of Stay Wild
The fawns here at Stay Wild Rescue are getting very close to their release date. The New York State DEC mandates a release of fawns in rehabilitation by September 15th every Fall. We have 19 fawns preparing for their release back to the wild. The fawns are of various ages and sizes, ranging from a young buck who is already 60 lbs down to a late born doe who is only 20 lbs. When they come in as orphaned fawns they typically weigh between 3-6 lbs. We do a soft release here, which means that we simply open the gate to the pasture and barn where they have been raised and lead them down a path into the woods adjoining their pasture. They can return to the pasture and barn at first, to get water and food but we will no longer bottle feed them.
Ned
This baby is growing like crazy!
Kittens, Kittens, Everywhere!
November 5, 2020
We currently have 36 kittens and 4 adults in our care here at Stay Wild Rescue. We have some homes lined up but are still in need of homes for the majority of them. Our foster homes have been put to the test and we have even recruited some new families to help us care for these babies. We are up to 5 families, some of whom are in Trumansburg, but we have expanded out to Ithaca, Interlaken and beyond!
The babies are of all ages between 3 weeks and 14 weeks old. Kittens born in the Fall are very often sick or have more severe health issues. The reason for this is unknown, but I believe that it is due to the fact that they are most likely the 3rd or even 4th litter of kittens that their mother has had since Spring or their mother was herself a kitten not too long ago and her poor body is not mature or healthy enough to grow babies. Fall kittens and the sad condition they are often in is one of the reasons it is so important to spay and neuter your animals.
All 36 of the kittens in our care have needed antibiotics this Fall. They have all come in with severe flea infestations and worms. Several of them were near death when they first arrived and required hours of subcutaneous fluids before they were strong enough to swallow any formula or eat any food on their own. We have seen some very stubborn eye infections and the most severe respiratory infections that are resilient to antibiotics. We lost poor Lion to a late and very fast onset of a respiratory infection but have managed to save the rest of them. This has required quarantine and lots of vet visits and medications so it has been a very expensive Fall.
We are very excited to start getting these babies into their homes soon! Their families are eagerly awaiting their arrival. Spread the word and help us find the rest of them the amazing homes they so deserve.
Donations are very much needed and appreciated!