Latest news with #EvaHartmann
Global News
04-07-2025
- General
- Global News
Endangered western painted turtle released by Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society
After a long drive, a very important passenger is minutes away from freedom. Members of the Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society have travelled to Kelowna's Wilden neighbourhood to release an endangered western painted turtle that had been in their care for several weeks after being run over by a car. 'She had a cracked shell, and one of the cracks on her shell in the back end was floating,' said Eva Hartmann, founder of the Interior Wildlfire Society. The turtle was found on the road near Still Pond in Wilden, and Hartmann says it's important to return the turtle to its original place for many reasons. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy 'It's very important that they are only exposed to anything that may be in their home pond, where they are from, and that is exactly where they go back to because we don't want to spread diseases around,' said Hartmann. Story continues below advertisement The turtle's home pond is next to a wildlife tunnel built into Wilden. However, not all the animals find their way through it. Like the turtle being released Thursday, some take the road. 'On either side of this road are wetlands, so they're migrating between those ponds to lay their eggs,' said Johanna Eger, Wilden marketing manager. The society has partnered with developers of Wilden to keep turtles and other wildlife safe. 'We need to be alert, especially with the nesting season right now, with the turtles,' said Jody Crumb, Interior Wildlife Society volunteer. 'If we just slow down, we can give them the chance to cross the road safely, lay their eggs and make their way back in.' Now that the turtle is back in Still Pond, it can flex its flippers and go on a big swim.
CTV News
02-06-2025
- General
- CTV News
Stowaway porcupine travels nearly 1,000 kilometres across B.C.
A porcupine was rescued from the wreckage of a plane after a days-long trip across B.C. (Image credit: Eva Hartmann, Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society.) A young porcupine that crawled into the wreckage of a small plane recovered in northern B.C. was discovered days later and nearly a thousand kilometres away – and work is underway to get the animal back home. The Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society was contacted by the company that transported the plane from the crash site near Mackenzie to a salvage yard in Kelowna after the stowaway was found hiding under one of the plane's two seats and attempts to lure it out with food were unsuccessful. 'I was very surprised by that request. This definitely has not happened before,' said Eva Hartmann, the society's founder and executive director. The volunteer-run organization takes in roughly 100 animals a year, always with the goal of re-releasing them to within 10 kilometres of where they came from. In almost every case, an injured, orphaned or lost animal is delivered to the centre, which isn't set up dispatch people to do rescues. But in this case, Hartmann made an exception and gathered a crew to help extract the porcupine with the help of a veterinarian who could sedate the rodent. The long journey would have left the animal hungry, parched and disoriented, Hartmann said. 'It hadn't had any food or water and it's also really hot right now in the Okanagan. It was obviously scared, and it didn't make any moves of trying to come out by itself. It was probably exposed to a lot of noise and moving around,' she told CTV News, explaining why she decided to intervene. 'It was likely to just crawl into another plane part or any kind of machine at that industrial yard, and we certainly wanted to avoid that. A small porcupine has lots of places it can hide in. And certainly that wouldn't have been good if it then would have got lost again somewhere else,' she continued. rescued porcupine Image credit: Eva Hartmann, Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society The rescue was a delicate operation due to the tight space and the porcupine's prickly exterior but it went off without any quills being lost. 'We didn't want it to lose a lot of quills,' Hartmann said. 'That would be bad for the animal, because then it doesn't have its proper defense mechanism anymore. And also, I don't like to have quills in my fingers.' Some animals – marmots, in particular, are known to end up far from home after inadvertently hitching a ride on the underside of a vehicle, according to Hartmann. Porcupines, however, 'are not a common species to hitch rides,' she said. They are drawn to salt which Hartmann thinks explains why this one ended up in the plane's seat. 'The seats and seat belts are most likely to have been sweaty, so there (were) traces of salt … and they were all chewed up,' Hartmann said. Porcupine patients are not uncommon at the rehabilitation centre but returning them to where they belong is not usually as complicated as it is in this case. The effort to get the porcupine back to where the plane went down involves getting the exact location of the crash site, working with local and provincial governments to get authorization and finding pit stops at other animal welfare organizations to help the animal along the way. 'We would like to release her as soon as possible,' Hartmann said. 'The goal of everything that we do is to release the animals again. Same with this one.'
