PHOTO PROVIDED BY CROW Dr. Robin Bast. The first day CROW officially had everything moved into ARC’s building surgery was preformed on an eastern cottontail rabbit that had sustained wounds from a dog attack.

North Fort Myers’s best-known animal shelter is providing a temporary home for a Sanibel saver of animals of a different sort.

The Animal Refuge Center has shared its facilities with the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife in the wake of Hurricane Ian’s devastating damage to Sanibel.

CROW has set up operations in two of ARC’s buildings — its former clinic and another that allowed CROW to set up a nursery.

Thanks to ARC’s generosity and outreach from other centers, the big challenge of finding a temporary home for continuing operations was met.

CROW staff then worked together to meet the challenge of getting back to work.

“Honestly the most rewarding thing for me has been the teamwork,” veterinarian Dr. Robin Bast said. “We have always been very lucky in having a really solid supportive team at CROW. Regardless of whatever challenges we come up against, they rise to the challenge and find positive spins to put on things and lift each other up to help get through this. We have a really great team and despite all the challenges that arose from the storm, we are still grateful to be able to achieve our mission and thankful for the support of our community.”

On a personal note, Bast and CROW’s associate veterinarian had to deal simultaneously with personal loss — both lost their apartments and everything inside.

“We were dealing with gutting our places and trying to keep patient care going and finding a new place. The staff didn’t even bat an eyelash in offering to help and really being there for each other,” she said of the teamwork.

Hurricane preparation, evacuation

Along with many other organizations in Southwest Florida, CROW has a storm preparation plan.

Bast said they have a plan that is reviewed at the start of every storm season with staff. This year, the plan began with implementing preparation procedures when Hurricane Ian began showing potential of impacting Southwest Florida.

When the path abruptly changed, Bast said they kicked everything into high gear and began evacuating on Sept 27.

The evacuation entailed evacuating more than 150 patients. The baby squirrels, possums and raccoons went with Bast, students on site, and a couple of staff members to a hotel in Fort Myers.

“We rode out the storm there and continued to care for the babies in the hotel. They are relatively transportable compared to other patients we had,” she said, adding that obviously they were thinking temporarily.

The students and Bast stayed in the hotel for about 10 days before they helped the students arrange travel arrangements back home, as CROW no longer had housing available for them.

“We needed to get ourselves back and running before we could get back to teaching,” she said.

The intensive care and rehab patients were transferred to CROW’s partner rehab organizations across the state to the South Florida Wildlife Center and Conservancy of Southwest Florida, as well as the Keys.

Bast said some of the patients that they did not want to take to the hotel, but were close to being released or easily cared for, went home with staff members who are certified rehabilitators.

Hawks and owls rode out the storm in their garage.

After the storm any new patients admitted to CROW went through the BluePearl Pet Hospital in Fort Myers, which is a 24/7 dog and cat emergency room. Staff would go to BluePearl twice a day and triage any injured or sick wildlife that was dropped off. The wildlife was stabilized, treated and kept overnight at the hotel or at a staff member’s place before going to the Conservancy.

Temporary site

Conversations began about finding a temporary site to get CROW up and running at until it could return to Sanibel.

ARC Board Trustee Dr. Laura Leinen said in a nice twist of fate they had been talking with the board about how to repurpose the former clinic, as ARC’s new state-of-the-art clinic opened over the summer.

“It was wonderfully vacant when Ian came through,” she said. “Knowing the position that CROW was in, it was quite fortunate it was emptied out.”

Leinen said she was excited to offer the space to CROW, as they have always been friends with the organization and ARC’s damage was much more minimal than a lot of other organizations.

“It meant that we were in good shape and we could offer to others,” she said. “I know they would have gladly done the same thing for us if we were in that situation.”

Leinen said she and Bast, both veterinarians, have been connected for a long time in the community.

“We are thinking this is pretty cool. We are finally working together,” she said. “Robin and I are both passionate about the one health model … health of wildlife interconnected with health of people and domestic animals.”

Bast said they moved into the ARC facility at the end of October.

“We are now in a position to now actually keep patients and treat them here longer than 24- to 48-hour period,” she said, adding that ARC offered two of its buildings for CROW to use — the old clinic building, as well as another where there are lots of babies undergoing rehab care.

The old ARC clinic allows CROW to perform ICU and surgery, as well as do intakes.

Bast said they did surgery the first day they officially had everything moved into ARC’s building. The surgery was on an Eastern cottontail rabbit that had sustained wounds from a dog attack. Since then, they have done hook removals from turtles, as well as removing an injured eye from a burrowing owl.

“Luckily, we are in the position now to get back to doing a lot of the things we are able to do,” she said. “We are so blessed. When I first heard we had the possibility of moving the facility out here, so we can continue to function, it was a huge relief.”

After the storm, it was hard for the CROW staff to predict how much wildlife would be admitted.

“Some days we would have 25 to 30 admissions in a day that we would be triaging, and some days one or two,” Bast said. “Obviously people are very busy and it’s hard to get things transported to where they could get help. (There was) definitely a lot of animals affected. I don’t think we are getting slammed with a lot of patients because a lot of them didn’t do well.”

On Nov. 12, CROW had about a dozen patients in care with half of them being in intensive care.

“It’s definitely a lot quieter than usual. We are all kind of waiting on pins and needles on how red tide is going to turn out this season. We are praying it isn’t as bad as 2018 after Irma,” she said.

Sanibel campus

There is a lot of clean up to do at the island campus.

“It is hard to find words to describe it. It is incredibly changed and different than before,” Bast said of Sanibel.

With that said, the main buildings are all still standing, such as the hospital, student housing and educational center.

“From that perspective, we did well,” she said.

The inside of the clinic had some water on the lower level, but not a great deal. The top floor, which houses all the main equipment, such as diagnostic and surgery equipment, did completely fine. A great deal of that equipment was able to be moved to the ARC facility, with the exception of the X-ray machine.

“We are able to share the X-ray machine that ARC has in the new hospital,” Bast said.

With an emergency pass still needed to enter Sanibel, several trips to get the equipment were planned ahead of time, as not a lot of people were able to go at once.

Leinen said ARC’s new facility has a large full digital X-ray system, as well as laboratory blood testing equipment, that CROW is able to use.

“They come over with patients when needed. It’s such a luxury we have at this point to have the space to accommodate both groups that way,” she said.

Although all of the outdoor CROW enclosures sustained some level of damage, the newer ones that were done this year fared really well.

The older enclosures either need to be completely rebuilt, or undergo significant repairs, Bast said. For this reason, CROW is partnering with other local wildlife hospitals for rehab for their bird patients until they can get the enclosures up and running again.

As far as the student externships, they are put on pause until at least January.

“Luckily, housing on-island was not impacted structurally,” she said of student housing, which was without power so the students could not return.

On the plus side, she said two veterinary interns remain and are getting advanced training in special species medicine. The two began in July and so far have had a rough start.

“They have done an amazing job in terms of helping the students get through it and all of us continue to take care of patients. I am super proud of the students we had during the storm and super proud of interns. They continue to do good work and have a positive attitude and are still wanting to learn despite the challenges,” Bast said, adding that they are receiving great disaster work experience.

Community support

Those who would like to support CROW may make a monetary donation by visiting www.crowclinic.org and clicking on the hurricane relief fund. Bast said the donations will help CROW rebuild its enclosures, as well as continue to purchase supplies needed to take care of patients.

When there is more access to the island, she said they will reach out for volunteers who would like to help clean up the campus.

Helping wildlife

The injured wildlife hotline remains open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, including holidays, by calling 239-472-3644. Staff will walk the caller through if the wildlife needs to be rescued, or how to rescue the animal.

“Our volunteers were hugely impacted by the storm as well,” Bast said. “We don’t have as many active volunteers able to assist with transport and rescue. Anyone interested in that, or willing to help if they find an animal, can call us to get the help they need.”

Currently, she said all wildlife is being routed to BluePearl before going to CROW at ARC.

ARC

Leinen said although the main buildings are structurally fine, there was damage to their property, such as the trees and fencing, as well as damage to some of the dog lodges.

ARC is open for adoptions by appointment. She said she understands that some are not able to add to their family right now.

“If you have been thinking about adopting a dog or a cat, and your living situation was not heavily impacted by Hurricane Ian, now is a great time to look for a new friend. Saving a pet from us right now is opening up space for a shelter for someone who has to make a decision to relinquish a pet,” Leinen said. “If you are in the position, it really never has been a better time.”

ARC also is sorely in need of donations post-Ian.

To make a donation to ARC, visit animalrefugecenter.com.