This Wildlife Centre is Repairing the Relationship Between a Canadian City and Its Wild Neighbours
Voices: An Interview with Brittany Seki, Toronto Wildlife Centre
Over here at Climate North, we’ve been having conversations with some of the most forward-thinking leaders in the climate space —conversations that are too important and too inspiring to keep within closed circles. So we’re opening the doors and bringing you along. Welcome to Voices. This isn’t just about storytelling; it’s a call to action, a community of ideas, and a reminder that the future we dream of is one we build together.
In this edition of Voices, we spoke with Brittany Seki. As the Communications Manager for Toronto Wildlife Centre (TWC), Brittany has spent almost 8 years establishing and growing TWC’s Communications Team, along with developing and executing communication strategies across diverse channels to further TWC’s messaging.
With a Master’s degree and background in journalism, Brittany has leveraged her expertise in storytelling, digital media, and content creation to orchestrate impactful campaigns that raise awareness, mobilize support, and drive action to help sick, injured and orphaned wildlife.
Tell us about the Toronto Wildlife Centre and how it all got started?
Just a few decades ago, there was nowhere for sick, injured or orphaned wild animals to receive help in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), and nowhere for the community to turn when they encountered wildlife-related issues. Shocked by the lack of resources at the time, young biologist Nathalie Karvonen founded Toronto Wildlife Centre (TWC) in 1993.
Since then, as a registered charity supported entirely by donations, TWC has grown into one of the busiest wildlife centres on the continent! With an accredited and fully-equipped veterinary hospital, a wildlife rehabilitation centre, and a rescue program, over 120,000 patients have received the care that would have otherwise not been available to them - saving countless wild lives.
What is the mission that TWC is on? What problem are you looking to solve?
Toronto Wildlife Centre’s (TWC) mission is to build a healthy community for people and wildlife. To carry this out, we have five major program areas.
The first is our Wildlife Hotline, which is made up of knowledgeable, highly-trained staff who handle approximately 40,000 calls every year and advises the community about a wide range of wildlife situations – from medical emergencies to human/wildlife conflicts, to natural history information about the many wild species in our community.
The next is our Wildlife Rescue Team, the only one of its kind in Ontario that is qualified to respond to emergency wildlife situations. Our experts are trained in chemical immobilization, ice rescue, swift water rescue, tree climbing, oil spill response, and more. They are an invaluable community resource.
Our Wildlife Rehabilitation and Veterinary Teams work together to care for roughly 6,500 sick, injured, and orphaned wild animals each year, representing over 300 different species. The Veterinary Team performs complex medical procedures—from repairing the broken shell of a turtle hit by a car to administering blood transfusions for foxes poisoned by rodenticide. The Rehabilitation Team provides species-specific care to support recovery and successful release, which includes everything from hand-feeding orphaned babies to setting up species-specific enclosures designed to reduce stress and encourage natural behavior.
TWC also leads in Wildlife Education and Outreach, helping people understand the impact of their actions – like the negative impacts of improperly discarded waste, feeding of wild animals, unsupervised outdoor cats etc. – on local wildlife and how to coexist more respectfully. Through public presentations, media engagement, our website, and active social media channels, we aim to educate audiences of all ages.
Why do you believe it’s important for people to be aware of this problem and have access to a business like yours?
Awareness of the challenges wildlife face in urban environments — and of organizations like Toronto Wildlife Centre — is essential for building a community that values and protects its wild neighbours.
While there are many wildlife rehabilitation centres across Canada, TWC is unique in its scope. We’re the only centre offering such a wide range of integrated programs: wildlife rescue, veterinary care, rehabilitation, education and outreach. These services not only alleviate the suffering of individual animals — often harmed by human activity — but also support broader conservation goals by helping maintain healthy populations and biodiversity. By engaging with and supporting TWC, individuals and communities contribute to the preservation of local ecosystems, helping to promote the peaceful coexistence of people and wildlife.
What projects and/or products are you excited about expanding on in 2025?
In 2025, we’re focusing on a few things that might not seem all that “sexy” to some, but they’re incredibly important to us. These behind-the-scenes steps are laying the groundwork for some big, exciting projects we’ll be sharing more about soon. But for this year, we're creating an in-depth strategic planning process, with input from our staff, and volunteers such as our board members.
As a charity with limited resources, the demands required to help our communities and wildlife grow every year. So to help build that capacity, our team has started working on a series of training modules internally. TWC explodes into action during the busy spring season until early fall. Since we can’t just throw anyone into caring for an emaciated great blue heron who needs tube-feeding to build his strength, these training modules are essential for helping to prepare volunteers, interns, and staff. Creating these really fulsome training modules is something that's going to really help us expand our capacity to help the community and wildlife.
Other 2025 projects include a full website revamp, expanding our use of live web cameras and streaming, and producing more video content that showcases our life-saving work.
Can you tell us about some recent success stories or breakthroughs in the work you are doing?
We have many success stories about wild patients. One recent case was about a red fox who suffered a severely wounded leg.
The fox limped towards the food that had been left for him in his enclosure at TWC. A camera had been set up to help the medical team monitor him, and the bright blue bandage that had been wrapped firmly around his wounded right hind leg stood out against his auburn fur. Despite his injury, he eagerly gobbled up his food and then gingerly hobbled back to his soft bed to curl up and rest.
This fox had a fighting spirit. Kristian, a neighbourhood resident, had first spotted the poor animal struggling to walk. He was extremely weak, thin, and in pain from a large gash that ran the length of his hind leg. She wondered if the fox could have been hit by a car, and was heartbroken to watch him slip slowly into a culvert beneath a driveway, unable to do much but hide. Kristian quickly sought help, and soon the injured animal was receiving expert care at TWC.
The medical team immediately got to work once the new patient arrived. X-rays ruled out any broken bones, but the 12-inch-long gash was quite large. Before they could move forward with a procedure to close the wound, the tissue needed time to heal. So the extensive treatment plan began – along with antibiotics and pain medication, the fox needed to be sedated every two days so the wound could be cleaned, receive laser therapy to speed healing, and be carefully re-bandaged.
This life-saving treatment worked wonders on the fox’s injury. After over a week, the Veterinary and Rehabilitation Teams were happy to see him improving. He was putting on weight, and he was more active despite his wrapped leg. It was clear the patient was strong enough to undergo surgery.
With the fox fast asleep under anaesthesia, the Veterinary Team began the delicate procedure — placing 27 sutures along the full length of his leg to close the large wound. The medical team was thrilled to see that just over a week post-surgery, the fox had completely transformed. He went from limping to leaping around his enclosure, rambunctiously pulling on branches and sheets — a clear sign he was feeling like himself again.
The resilient fox was moved to a spacious outdoor enclosure to acclimatize and continue his recovery as his fur regrew around his incision site. Finally the day came for his release, and he bounded off into the night… stopping for only a moment to glance back at the people who helped to save his life.
Check out some of our other recent success stories here:
What are common challenges that you encounter in your industry and while growing your business?
As a charity, limited resources are always an issue. As demands grow, more funds and more supplies are needed each year to help save wild lives. There's just so much work to be done, and we're the only wildlife centre in the GTA, and the busiest wildlife centre in Canada. So this is a constant issue.
As a wildlife charity in particular, sometimes it feels as though each time we take one step forward, we’re taking two steps backwards. With human infrastructure developing at an exponential rate and expanding into wildlife habitats, more and more species are in need of help. Even in areas like our beautiful Canadian cottage country, popular design trends — like installing glass railings on patios, decks, and stairways — can be deadly for birds. As a wildlife charity, we work hard to educate and inform, to rescue and rehabilitate, and to counter the negative impact human choices can have on our wild neighbours.
What motivates you to keep pushing forward?
For Toronto Wildlife Centre, a big motivation to keep doing what we do is, quite obviously, the individual wildlife who we can help directly. Just like the fox I mentioned earlier — watching him go from weak and barely able to walk to bounding back into the wild — moments like that are truly priceless. These wild animals are often admitted when suffering from a terrible medical crisis, or as very young babies who are orphaned. There’s absolutely no way they can survive on their own. So when you get the chance to rehabilitate those animals and release them back into the wild, that's certainly very, very rewarding.
It's also really rewarding to have the support from our community as well. Whether that be our volunteers, our donors, or even the general public. When we face specific challenges or share concerns with the community, it’s incredibly heartwarming to see how many people are like-minded and step up to help. Whether it’s joining the search for wildlife affected by an industrial spill or donating to support the rescue effort, that support means a lot. On days when our teams are working long hours — washing over 100 waterbirds and treating them for ingested toxins — it’s especially uplifting to hear positive feedback from the community. That kind of encouragement can make a big difference.
What type of impact do you hope that TWC will have on communities, ecosystems, or the planet at large?
We hope that Toronto Wildlife Centre continues to make a difference for individual wild animals. For species-at-risk in particular, whose populations are vulnerable, this work can make a big difference. For example, currently all native species of turtles in Ontario are at risk, and each female turtle who loses her life to a car strike on her way to her nesting grounds is detrimental. Helping even one female turtle, who can lay 20-40 eggs each season, is essential to the growth of their population - every life is worth saving.
Through education and outreach, we can have an even greater impact on helping both people and wildlife in our communities. For example, when issues like off-leash dogs and/or leaving out food lead to changes in coyote behaviour, and spark controversy or misinformation in the media, it’s encouraging to see our community respond with accurate, informed insights. Often, they’re sharing information we’ve provided — through short documentary videos, social media, or media interviews — helping to give wildlife a voice. It’s genuinely uplifting to know our work is reaching people and making a difference.
We also hope, especially long term, that TWC will be able to do even more to affect laws that directly impact/protect wild animals. Through outreach, we can encourage people to put pressure on all levels of government to enforce existing laws — because wild animals truly do need protection in many areas. TWC, and organizations like ours, are uniquely positioned to rally the public and help turn that momentum into real action.
Climate North is all about bringing people together to encourage real time action. How can individuals, communities and/or other organizations support your efforts?
Toronto Wildlife Centre is a charity, and not funded by the government. Individuals and organizations can support our life-saving work through generous donations, which is the lifeblood of our operations.
We are going into the absolute busiest time of the year right now. Spring is just madness here for babies who need multiple hand-feedings a day, migratory birds suffering injuries after striking windows, bats being disturbed from hibernation too early, turtles being struck by cars before they’re able to lay eggs, and more. An enormous amount of help is needed each year, but this time especially.
Another way people can support our efforts is to try to learn about their individual impact on wild animals in the community - helping to prevent them from needing help in the first place.
Simple tasks such as properly disposing of waste, making windows bird-safe, avoiding the use of glue traps, and more, can make a world of difference. For example, cats left to roam unsupervised outdoors wreak havoc on small wildlife populations. The beloved pet may bring home a couple of baby rabbits or injured birds, and we're asked to help take care of those animals… but sadly, the ones who are found alive almost never survive. The infection from cat bites is phenomenally serious, and the injuries are often fatal. If you magnify that by the millions of people who have free-roaming cats in the GTA and beyond, the negative impact is immense. Pet owners can do things like switch to walking their cats outdoors on a harness and leash, or build a cat enclosure, or even just lessen the amount of time their cat spends outside. Solutions are available on our website.
So one of the best ways to help support our work is to learn about the ways you can reduce your impact on our wild neighbours, preventing new patients from being admitted.
If you wanted people to walk away remembering one thing about the work you’re doing, what would you want it to be?
The most important thing for people to remember: at Toronto Wildlife Centre, we’re working to undo the impact that humans and their activities have had on our planet and on the wild animals that we share our planet with. That's the only reason TWC needs to exist, and we would be delighted to one day be out of business. But we are here just simply to mitigate the impacts that we have on wild animals every single day.
Where can people stay in-the-know about TWC ?
People can visit torontowildlifecentre.com, find us on our social media channels, sign up for our newsletter, and donate to receive our donor-exclusive print newsletter.
This interview was hosted and edited by Chloe D’Agostini.