As inflation continues to affect many in the province, one Island animal hospital has been feeling the pinch.
The MARS Wildlife Rescue Centre is an organization that focuses on rescuing and rehabilitating injured wildlife in the Comox Valley, with President Warren Warttig saying that inflation has hit the centre hard.
“We’re down ten percent for donations from just last year,” said Warttig.
“One of the things we do at MARS is we take animals in 24/7, and with that we’ve seen an increase for well over a thousand animals every year now. We work all year round, and we have to build new structures, and with inflation, the building materials were almost doubled.”
Warttig says one of the things they got hit with was the student jobs grants they got from the federal government.
“The peak of our animal intake is June and July, and after that it tails off, but we really need the students,” said Warttig. “Normally it’s 50 percent so if you want two, you’d ask for four, and in our case we asked for eight, and we got one.”
He adds that they had to dip into their own reserve for $33,000 dollars because the grants weren’t coming through, calling it a difficult period for the centre.
In terms of support, there has been an increase in monthly giving, with the number going from 78 to 89 over the last year, along with members of the community donating materials to the centre whenever they’re in need.
“We are worried that people will think twice before coming to the visitor centre or to come and volunteer, because of the sheer expense of this inflation.”
