Roanoke wildlife center temporarily halts accepting new animals

ROANOKE, Va. – A Roanoke wildlife center is not be accepting new animals for a few days, although it could be longer than that.

The Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center announced on Saturday afternoon that it would, “pause intaking new patients for a few days, perhaps even beyond that.”

The organization cited a few reasons for what it called a “difficult decision”:

• Working with a skeleton crew
• Seeing more animals than the previous year
• The strain of the coronavirus pandemic on the center’s resources
• Ongoing lawsuits preventing the center from having suitable caging to quicken our turnaround time for patients

“... in blunt honesty, we are all killing ourselves trying to save everything. We are all completely overwhelmed both each individually and as an organization,” the center posted to Facebook.

While no new animals will be admitted, animals already in the center’s care will continue to be treated.

“We’re sick to our stomachs that we even had to consider doing this – this is the first time in our history that we’ve had to do something like this and we feel ashamed.”