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survive on their own and Ed Clarke was teasing the veterinarian about being too lazy to start such a facility. “He turned it around and said ‘You set up the program and I’ll take care of the animals’ and the next thing we knew, our wives were involved and we realized we had the core we needed to begin - a doctor, two veterinary technicians and a professional conservation fund raiser and manager.”
The backgrounds and interests couldn’t have meshed any better. Ed had worked for the Conservation Council of Virginia and the Environmental Task Force based in Washington, D.C. He and Nancy had moved back to her home in the Valley after she earned her degree as veterinary technician. Ed was doing consulting work for national conservation groups and she was employed at a local animal hospital.
Born and raised in Rappahannock County, Clarke has. his roots in the Virginia wilds. “I’ve always been interested in wildlife. I hunted with my uncle as soon as I was big enough to carry a gun and we spent weekends and vacations in the mountains of Pennsylvania. I literally grew up in the mountains,” Clarke said, adding, however, that he no longer hunts. “I’m not philosophically opposed to sport hunting. It just seems inconsistent with the rest of what I’m trying to do.”
They had access to the veterinary clinic through Stuart Porter’s connections with Blue Ridge College. Ed and Nancy had a large barn on their property that could be remodeled into a rehabilitation center and the four of them could share the work.
They were off. They talked to officials of Virginia’s Game and Fish division, ornithologists, other veterinarians who were wildlife experts, leaders of local SPCA groups. They got a permit from both the state Game Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to receive, hold, treat and house wild animals. “We set a record for getting our tax exempt status. The IRS had our application in the morning and our exemption was granted that afternoon. It usually takes months but we found an animal lover in the office who expedited things for us,” said Ed, the expert at working around the old beaurocratic shuffle.
MASH Unit Donated
One of the Valley’s local governments donated an entire civil defense field hospital — “a full MASH unit” — that had been stored, airtight and in mint condition, in an old warehouse. Area hospitals contributed surplus equipments. WaynTex, Inc. of Waynesboro gave synthetic mesh for two 70-foot flight cages, Southern Electric Company of Staunton gave electrical supplies and the University of Virginia Medical School contributed three dozen small animal cages and a continuing supply of rats and mice to feed the recovering patients. A doctor, a total stranger who had seen Ed’s program at a local game show, came back with expensive equipment for monitoring vital signs of animals on the operating table.
And the animals started to arrive — 270 of them since the center opened last
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