The Northern Lights Wildlife Society has lost volunteers due to the COVID-19 pandemic according to founder Angelika Langen.
Travel restrictions were put in place at the beginning of the pandemic, so the wildlife society lost volunteers who were originally scheduled to help out throughout the summer.
According to Langen, international volunteers were out of the question but even local volunteers were advised not to travel.
She said the NLWS are down to their base crew and the release season is coming up in June which will take some of the crew away from home.
“I don’t know yet if it will force us some time depending on the numbers and what we can and can’t do to limit what we’re taking in, that’s our biggest worry right now, that we have to say we can’t handle more and we have to turn an animal away, that’s really scary,” she said.
Langen added one of their biggest fundraisers, the annual Canada Day open house does not look like it will be going ahead as planned.
According to Langen, without having the open house it will have a financial impact on the NLWS.
The wildlife society is looking into how they can do the open house in a virtual way without spending a lot of money.
She said the NLWS are looking into using facetime and go at certain times to certain animals and talk about them and then follow it with a question and answer period.
“That’s kind of the direction we’re leaning right now because then it’s not a big financial expense on our end putting out without knowing what we’re going to be getting in,” she said.
The NLWS M&M fundraiser is currently underway where they raise money to help release the grizzlies, purchase milk powder and cover fuel costs.