WHO
WE ARE
Founded in 1996, the Atlantic Wildlife Institute (AWI), a registered Canadian charity, provides wildlife rehabilitation, education, and emergency management services in New Brunswick and the Atlantic Canada region.
OUR STAFF
Barry Rothfuss
Executive Director
Pam Novak
Director, Wildlife Care
Greg Osowski
Outdoor Educator
AWI is governed by a board of directors and is run by the executive director, who oversees the daily activities of management and the organization's services.
OUR SITE &
FACILITIES
AWI operates on a privately owned parcel of land 15 km outside Sackville, New Brunswick. A scenic property of mixed forests, open fields, and wetlands overlooking the banks of the Tantramar River.
Set on 120 acres, the site boasts two dozen buildings and enclosures dedicated to AWI’s activities.
The Wildlife Learning Centre (WLC), constructed in 2003, is a 2,800-square-foot space for educational presentations, school trips, training sessions, and offices.
The WLC is designed as a low-impact space with a concrete, heat retaining, in-floor radiant heat space with south-facing windows for passive solar gain. Its open concept lends itself to multi-functionality and future expansion opportunities.
Outside, the WLC is flanked by two ponds, the East and West Ponds, offering a buffer for seasonal water and giving native wildlife additional space to use and enjoy.
Also, at the WLC is a tree sculpture designed by staff and students of Mount Allison University sculpture class. It is constructed with materials and labour donated by a New Brunswick Community College welding class.
The WLC also houses the start of a 2 km trail system that, low impact in construction, allowing staff and visiting groups to trek through a mixed forest (including old forest growth) and lake-side paths. The area is protected with a conservation easement in partnership with the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
AWI’s property was one of NCC’s first projects protecting ecologically sensitive areas along the Chignecto Isthmus. This will help provide a safe haven for many at-risk fauna and flora species.
Other areas of the property house various wildlife species designed for patients’ conditioning needs for release and short and long-term care.
These include:
-
Bird of prey aviaries
-
Black bear compound and dens
-
Medium mammal enclosures
-
Songbird aviaries
-
Medical treatment and nursery buildings
OUR STORY
Founded in 1996, the Atlantic Wildlife Institute (AWI), a registered Canadian charity, provides wildlife rehabilitation, education, and emergency management services in New Brunswick and the Atlantic Canada region.
Today, we are leading the way in response services in New Brunswick, handling thousands of rescue and rehabilitation cases over the years, representing more than 250 species. In addition, staff members have provided consultation and advice in more than 30,000 wildlife emergencies and calls.
AWI is licensed in the province of New Brunswick to handle indigenous wildlife under provincial jurisdiction and federally licensed to handle migratory species in all four Atlantic provinces. Our permits allow us to work with sensitive and at-risk species.
AWI operates year-round on a 120-acre property with mixed forests, open fields, and wetlands overlooking the beautiful Tantramar River just outside of Sackville, the Town of Tantramar, New Brunswick. It is easy to reach and central to all of the maritime provinces
What started as an abandoned farmland property has grown into a busy learning and research centre, open 365 days a year.
It now includes:
-
Wildlife Learning Centre
-
wildlife care buildings
-
large aviary, barns, and several enclosures for recuperating wildlife
-
low impact lake and woodland trail meanders through the property's protected acreage
AWI encourages learning about the vital relationship between people and nature. The focus is on hands-on learning and research rooted in a rescue, rehabilitation, and release program for displaced wildlife. We use our wildlife rescue program to identify and highlight key environmental health issues for public attention and response.
Learning by doing is central to the mission.
Wildlife rehabilitation work is a kind of ecological sampling, a tool for identifying environmental change. Documenting and studying wildlife afflicted by habitat loss, toxicity, and wildlife-borne diseases can help us better understand these conditions.
The potential benefit is enormous. In broad terms, it’s a future where humans live in harmony with the natural world. In a single word, it’s about survival.
OUR FUTURE
Setting our sites on long-term solutions
We’ve laid the foundation. Now, we are ready for more.
More than a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation facility, AWI has always nurtured a broader vision that benefits our communities, industries, governments, and educational institutions. We look to build enduring programs and infrastructures that can address long-term solutions and fix immediate problems.
Our goal? To create a Wildlife Centre of Excellence.
A Centre where professionals and students can learn and share best practices and ideas of solutions and offer hands-on learning — all to help promote healthy wildlife populations and ecosystems.
OUR TIMELINE
2020s
-
2024 — Provided a study site for Birds Canada on fall migratory bird banding
-
2023 — Summer monitoring for cynobacteria in AWI ponds and Tantramar River/Reid Lake in partnership with Mount Allison University
-
2022 — Installation of a MOTUS wildlife tracking tower on site to assist area research and global conservation efforts
-
2022 — Site utilization by PhD candidate, Georgetown University of N. American project tracking/satellite tagging of North American Robins
-
2021 — 25th anniversary of Atlantic Wildlife Institute
-
2021-present — Site utilization of summer research project (MtA) of local amphibian and reptiles
2010s
-
2018-present — Yearly paid student internship program on site in partnership with Mount Allison University
-
2018 — Donation of 160 acres of land by the Sears family to AWI for habitat protection
-
2017 — Establishment of the AWI-MTA Wildlife Club at Mount Allison University
-
2015-present — Yearly youth summer and school break cature camps offered on site to over 100 participants per year
-
2013 — Coordinated wildlife response/recovery for largest flaring event globally to have occurred, LNG Canaport/Saint John
-
2011 — Creation of a Wildlife Response Network, and Restoring Balance program
2000s
-
2006 — Placement of a conservation easement on AWI property by Nature Conservancy of Canada
-
2004 — Maritime Atlantic Wildlife is renamed Atlantic Wildlife Institute Inc./Institute Atlantique de la Faune, Inc.
-
2003 — Construction of a 2,800-sq-ft Wildlife Learning Centre
-
2000 — Extensive bio-inventory of the AWI 120-acre site completed by Mount Allison University summer students and Nature Conservancy of Canada
1990s
-
1999 — Construction of 3,700 sq-ft Birds of Prey flight conditioning area
-
1996 — Achieved registered charitable status with Canada Revenue Agency
-
1995 — Construction began on wildlife care buildings