AHWF dedicated to helping area's wildlife

CLARK FORK — A crossbill climbs the grates of a pen in Kathleen St. Clair-McGee’s garage.

In another fenced enclosure a pair of white-throated swifts wait to be fed from a dropper.

Outside, a waterfowl kennel is broken and in need of repair, but the raccoon holding area is stout as a snow shed.

Several flycatchers dart from a tree into a shaded hollow.

“You hear that little peep, peep?” Clair-McGee asks a visitor. “That’s them.”

The crossbill, swifts, as well as the flycatchers are birds that were brought here to be cared for.

St. Clair-McGee is a former zookeeper with a degree in human resources, but at her home five miles east of Clark Fork and three miles west of the Montana state line, she manages wild animals that are either injured or too small to survive. Some of the animals are brought to her. Some are retrieved from area veterinary clinics after she is notified.

That is how she became a wild animal keeper.

“I worked at the animal shelter, and we always got calls,” she said. “I realized there was no place around that was doing this.”

Technically, the animals are not kept.

Hers is a long-term, yet temporary assignment.

When they are healed, or mature enough to make it on their own, she turns loose the raccoons, weasels, songbirds and ducks she has cared for.

Her permits from the state allow her to take in non-game animals and migratory birds, but she does not have a federal license to care for bald eagles.

Next to her office — an addition of her garage — is an approved facility stacked with cages, pens and animal holders.

A built-in facility allows birds to fly and exercise their wings.

The white-throated swifts, a rare species that she retrieved when they were barely two-inches long, are holed up in the flight pen.

She is looking for the people who turned them over to a Sandpoint vet several weeks ago, so she can release them in the same area, she says.

“It is important to return them to the right place,” she says. “They like to be in colonies.”

The swifts, she says, were dropped off at a clinic by a woman who found them on her boat motor.

“That’s the second-hand story I got,” St. Clair-McGee says.

Releasing animals in the right environs is often a difficult task.

Finding places relatively wild and far enough from humans, so animals tended to by AHWF don’t flock back to human contact, can be a chore.

Volunteer workers, or friends of the organization sometimes have her release small mammals and birds on their rural property, she says.

Finding the proper nutritional regime for the animals she takes in can be just as ticklish.

“It’s not an exact science,” she says. “So, we do what we can.”

The crossbill, a seed eater with a bill made for extracting the meaty heart of cones, flutters around an enclosure with an injured leg and wing. It is fed cedar cones and a variety of seeds pressed into globs.

The swifts are fed a concoction of worms, mina bird food, calcium and vitamins mixed with water.

“We’re constantly trying to read and review what works best for whatever species,” she says.

Because it is a nonprofit, the wildlife foundation works primarily from grants and donations. Volunteers have find-raising events and help her with fences, enclosures, public relations and marketing.

This is not a pet and cuddle show.

Animals she takes in are reared with as little human contact as possible, she says. Mammals especially require an environment where they are fed and watered without being in touch with their caregivers. 

After the animals are released into the wild in good health, she does not expect to see them again.

Usually that is the case.

Once, however, a few years ago there was this woodpecker.

“He flew crooked,” she said.

The whacky flight did not seem to bother the bird.

“The next year, he was back with a buddy,” she says.

A nearby tamarack had a dying top full of beetles that the birds fed on.

“He came back a couple years in a row,” she says. “It made me feel good.”

To volunteer, donate or follow AHWF, click on http://ahwf.org/, or call 208-266-1488.