HUGE THANKS TO REBUILDING TOGETHER: OAKLAND,  Rachel Matthews, Paul Radliff, and to the foresight of Landscaper Anders Schmidt.

In 2006, Paul Radliff of Pulte Homes, fell in love with one of our rescue squirrels and made his best argument to the leadership of Rebuilding Together: Oakland to help our struggling grassroots wildlife rehab center.  Squirrel Magic prevailed and our small animal rescue center was awarded a grant of over $50,000 worth of materials and labor to renovate our facility. Then the experts showed up and told us how things would go.

Right away they identified a severe erosion problem affecting the foundation of the main building – a house which has served as the educational center for Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue over the course of nearly five years. The Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue center is located at an Oakland Hills location, on a 30% percent slope of mostly clay mud. The experts saw that water and time had worked some real mischief on the foundation, especially down slope! In places, there was air holding up the concrete sill – One could poke an arm under this into the basement!  On the up slope, water was flowing under the foundation with each rain, washing away more dirt from beneath the foundation. Their solution? A system of cascading terraces formed by Soil Retention Co. designed interlocking soil retaining blocks to redirect the water flow away from the foundation, plus multi-tons of concretized gravel which would fuse at the first rains. Lastly, we would cover the downslope  with erosion resistant actinia groundcover.

The property owner gave the go ahead and the crew got to work. And when they were done, the question remained; How would all of this perform in the very Real World of a mushy hillside where thousands of Redwoods once stood shoulder to shoulder against the elements, mighty sentinels only a memory now. And also, only 1.3 miles away, the great sleeping dragon – the Hayward Fault – quivering in it’s ancient sleep, one day to awaken in a colossal shudder…

The winter of 2006 was the first test – and the terraces worked BEAUTIFULLY! In pelting rains te cascades of water were being diverted away from the foundation of the house and flowing down the slope safely, not budging the man-made stones in the sl

ightest. No mudflows here! But what about earthquakes? How would these stones and concrete and gravel hold up against a power that can lift up mountains and sink cities?

Over the next few years we got an answer of sorts, nothing conclusive – yet. A flurry of quakes in the 3-4 Richter range quite nearby didn’t disturb these stubborn little retaining walls in the least bit. And

the house they were helping to hold up remained

dead vertical. (Tested this with a carpenter’s level after each earthquake!)

Now, during the Storms of 2009, we have seen 4.5 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. The soil is supersaturated. Trees are falling all around us. It s at these times that we worry, remembering the mudslide that had blocked Skyline Blvd. back in 2006, one block uphill from us. But quickly, the trying night was over and we went to survey the damage….

NONE!

The walls and terraces had done their job, and the massive rains had been deflected downhill and away most successfully! Four and a half inches of rain had been laughed to shame and all of the outdoor Rescue cages were in good operating order.

The work goes on.

Paul,  Anders, Rachel and Rebuilding Together: Oakland – BIG THANKS!  You got it right!

Tony from Big O Tires on San Pablo in Berkeley came to our rescue again when we had a rear tire blow-out in the rescue van.  They donated and installed a nice tire on the van so it is safe to drive around town once again!

Thank you Big O Tires, Tony, and the staff of the San Pablo Ave, Berkeley shop!

 2625 San Pablo Ave
Berkeley, CA 94702
Phone: (510) 843-9633
Fax: (510) 843-5656

Peet’s Coffee in Castro Valley, held a Holiday Fundraiser to support our work. They donated the proceeds from all fresh coffee sales and tips on Christmas Eve at their store. And to make matters even better, the Corporate Office of Peet’s then matched the amount, making the total donation amount just over $1,500.00 ~ That will buy a lot of baby formula, food and medications for our wildlife patients.

Thank you to Peet’s Coffee and those who participated in this event.

Once again, Abby, and the wonderful volunteers from OneBrick.Org came through to help our wildlife center by building new pens for our recovering wildlife patients.

Thank you so much for your support!

December was a busy month at the wildlife center.
The weather has been so odd that we never really had the winter slowdown we are accustomed to and need to recharge our batteries. We still had juvenile squirrels and other animals we were caring for who were late-season babies and we received many injured adults.

Mid December, the One Brick organization came back to help. It was a rainy day and despite the foul weather, many came up to fold brochures and newsletters and do general cleaning.

Late in December, thanks to the rain and a hidden ongoing problem, our sewer pipe backed up again.

We wish to express many thanks to the City Inspector, Mr Washington, and the 2 plumbing companies who worked with us to repair this problem in a timely manner.

Beyond Plumbing came out and videotaped the sewer line. Thank you Beyond Plumbing!

H&R Plumbing did the actual repair of the broken pipeline. They donated all the materials and labor for this project and replaced a section of sewer line that was broken and full of logs and dirt.

Apparently this had been an ongoing problem for over 6 years, before we moved onto this property. We are pleased that it has now been resolved and so grateful to Mr Washington, the City of Oakland inspector, for his patience and flexibility working with us, and to Beyond plumbing for videotaping the sewer line, and to H&R Plumbing for all their hard work repairing the problem.

Without your help we would not have been able to get this done! Thank you all!

On November 12th, nearly 30 people came to the rescue of our wildlife center by spending the day working at our facility, repairing erosion problems, clearing brush, transporting dirt and gravel, and completing a squirrel enclosure.

More thank you’s are on their way, but in the meantime, please enjoy the photos of that day.

A very special thank you to OneBrick.org, Abby and Peter, as well as to Renee and Michelle Snyder for providing lunch for all these folk! Good job!!

Saturday, November 11th was a rainy day.
But it was a very special day too.

On Saturday, November 11th, 16 people drove over an hour away to do back-breaking work out in the fields of a Walnut Orchard on the Gursky Ranch. For hours those people worked, gathering walnuts to donate to our wildlife center to feed the animals in our care. By the end of the day we had gathered nearly 600 pounds of walnuts!

A very special Thank you to Roy and Lynn Gursky, owners of Gursky Ranch in Brentwood, CA. The Gursky Ranch is more than just a walnut orchard. It is a wonderful country store packed full with confections and candies, nuts and dried fruits and special food items. Visit them for special gourmet jams, jellies, chutneys and much more! They are only open from October through December so don’t miss it!

A Huge Thank you also, to those dedicated people who went above and beyond to help the wildlife center under difficult circumstances.

Thank you also to Starbucks for providing hot coffee to our hard workers through-out the event, and to Safeway for donating lunch.

Thank you to EVERYONE who wrote letters, called, and spread the word against the crushing of the squirrels in Cuesta Park in Mountain View.

For those of you just reading this, the squirrels in a park in mountain view had become accustomed to being fed by humans in the park and when this summer’s juveniles started dispersing from Mom’s nest, in their angst they became grab-by and insistent with people, jumping into strollers for cookies stored there, and biting fingers – which look like Peanuts. The result was an alarmist response, saying that the squirrels were aggressive and attacking people. A 4-year old child was forced to get unnecessary and painful rabies shots even though Tree Squirrels don’t transmit rabies to humans (Check out the http://www.cdc.gov/ for verification of this fact!).

Well, here is the latest on the Mountain View Squirrels. A reprieve, for now….

Mountain View relents on plan to kill aggressive squirrels
Associated Press
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – City officials are relenting on a plan to trap and kill aggressive squirrels that have been attacking humans in a popular park.

The city does not have any immediate plans to arm the steel traps placed in the trees at Cuesta Park two weeks ago, David Muela, the city’s community services director, said Friday.

The city previously said it had no choice but to kill the squirrels after three people – including a 4-year-old boy – were bitten inside the park.

The animals were jumping inside baby strollers, opening food bags and even scratching people giving them handouts including a steady diet of muffins and leftover children’s treats, officials said.

The city hired a pest-control company to set the tube traps, which would crush the squirrels while keeping them from public view.

However, there have been no new attacks since a no-food zone was declared around the children’s play area, park ranger patrols were increased, and a public education program was launched, Muela said.

“People seem to be getting the message,” he said.

The plan to kill the squirrels caused an outcry from animal lovers, who bombarded City Hall with hundreds of letters, phone calls and e-mails.

Animal rights groups also complained, with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals warning the city it could be vulnerable to lawsuits if endangered wildlife were also killed.

Muela said the city is still exploring its options and has not ruled out arming the traps if the attacks start again.

Thank you all for your patience with the staff here at YUWR over the last several months. It has been quite busy here with various events and dramas as well as an extreme number of orphaned wildlife in need. Below I will attempt to update you all, according to month, on the goings-on.

APRIL:

YGGDRASIL URBAN WILDLIFE RESCUE
RESCUED BY LOCAL REBUILDING TOGETHER ORGANIZATION !

Formerly known as “Christmas in April”, “Rebuilding Together: Oakland” accepted our application for their 2006 non-profit facility grant to enlarge and develop our wildlife center!

The wonderful staff at RTO, together with Pulte Homes, spent 3 weeks in April building stairs and creating an education area at the bottom of the 1/3 acre property, so that we have full access to all the lower caging and animals in recovery. Previously, our staff had to walk/slide down the hillside to get to our cages.

Now we have stairs – a much safer prospect, especially in the rainy season. Pulte Homes and

RTO also replaced the carpet in our hospital with sterile linoleum and installed a sink to facilitate better sanitary conditions in the isolation ward.

A full article will be published in our winter newsletter, thanking everyone individually. In the meantime, YUWR would like to thank all the companies who donated materials, labor, and ideas to this renovation project. Specifically, Rachel Matthews, Paul Radliff, Anders Schmidt.

And…Thank you to our YUWR volunteers who stayed up til 5am various nights doing prep work, painting, and packing boxes. Thank you all.

MAY:

In the midst of the RTO April Project, we were blessed with a first for YUWR.
A 5 day old fawn was dropped off at the Oakland Animal Shelter.

Seems she was found at a rest stop while traveling through Marin County and driven all the way to Oakland! The staff of YUWR, in cooperation with Wildcare and their Fawn Expert Suzie Sasso, raised this little female fawn and a companion from Wildcare, for the first 6 weeks of their lives before transferring them to the Fawn Rehab facility in Marin.

The director would like to express her extreme gratitude to “Pot of Soup” and “Bombadil”, the two fawns, for helping to put things in perspective and being constant reminders of the beauty in the world, while she was in the middle of coping with the sudden illness and subsequent death from cancer of her father, William Talcott, in early June.

“We may save these animals but they, in turn, save us when the need arises. “

JUNE & JULY:

Mercifully slow months for the Wildlife Center. We had a few baby skunklets and the odd squirrel as well as the fawns to care for.

June and July were spent coping with the death in the family and caring for these orphaned and injured wildlife. Baby tree squirrels were supposed to come in but none came. We found this odd, especially since the spring baby wave was extremely light as well. We did receive in 8 baby Ca. Ground squirrels.

SOLANO AVENUE STROLL:
We did our first neighborhood fund-raising/volunteer fair this month.
We received a lot of interest and a good amount of donations.
If only we could do these more often!

The Solano Avenue Stroll is a neighborhood street fair. We had a booth with our informational boards as well as flyers and volunteer-sign-up sheets. We offered photographs of wildlife as well as funny squirrel mugs and rainbow-makers in exchange for donations.

We are restructuring our volunteer orientation program to get new people in here as soon as possible and hope to have an orientation up within the next 2 weeks. We also want to post a messag eboard here on our website to encourage group conversation among volunteers. We shall see how this goes… The Message board is posted at: http://yuwr.proboards61.com/

Thank you to all those at the fair who supported us by making a donation and/or signing up on our volunteer sheets.

Thank you to Janie Barnes for initiating our participation.

Thank you to Dr. Alex Devigal, DDS, for sponsoring our booth at the fair.

Thank you to Sasha McGowen, and her friends, who volunteered their time to paint faces to raise donations, and who stayed on with an interest in regular volunteering!

Thank you also to the volunteers who came out to give me a hug, bring me food and drink, and make sure I was able to take bathroom breaks throughout the day

We are still on the lookout for a fund-raiser / grantwriter to help keep this operation operating.

Also, if you were at the fair and received or newsletter, please sign up and shop at Albertson’s or with eScript. It costs you a few minutes of your time and earns funding for us. Thank you