News & Events

Upcoming Public Events & Programs

View our Event Calendar to see all upcoming events and programs.

Center for Wildlife and several partners have formed Gateway to Maine: Outside! FMI, click on the logo.

Full Moon Fridays Series- Hunters in the Night
Friday, May 11th, 6:30-8:00pm, Center for Wildlife, 385 Mountain Road, Cape Neddick, ME

Join Center for Wildlife under our educational pavilion and meet some animals that begin their "day" at dusk. Learn who stalks prey silently through the forest, meet the fiercest predator of the night sky, and learn who graciously eats many of the insects that help human health, forestry, and agriculture- for free while we sleep! This program is open to all ages, and space is limited. $5 suggested donation, reservations are required. To register please email us at info@yorkcenterforwildlife.org.

Center for Wildlife presentation at Wells Reserve...International Migratory Bird Day!
Saturday, May 12th, 11:00-12:00pm, Wells Reserve, 342 Laudholm Farm Road, Wells, ME

Celebrate the amazing raptors that make incredible journeys each year! Center for Wildlife educator and live animal ambassadors will spotlight these magnificent birds, their adaptations, journeys, and natural histories. Part of Wells Reserve's day-long celebration, there will be activities like bird banding, bird walks, crafts, a book signing, and lots more from 8-12pm. Click here to visit their website and learn more. We hope to see you there!

Center for Wildlife- Volunteer Workday
Thursday, May 17th, 1-4:00pm, Center for Wildlife, 385 Mountain Road, Cape Neddick, ME

Spring has officially sprung! Time to dust off those perches, clean out those habitats and help keep our Wildlife Ambassadors comfortable and safe during this exciting season! Are you handy with a hammer or superior with a scrub brush? The CFW is hosting a volunteer workday, and we are looking for able-bodied wildlife-enthusiasts to join us for a great afternoon of cleaning, habitat maintenance, and providing enrichment for our Ambassadors and their enclosures. This a wonderful opportunity to get outside, to give back and to help support the wild animals you have come to love through our educational programs every year! Led by the CFW education staff, we will be taking on fun Spring projects such as building new ramps for our disabled raptors, cleaning the enclosures and supplying them with fresh green trees and branches just in time before the hot months ahead. This is also a unique opportunity to get a “behind the scenes” look at our Ambassadors’ homes and learn more about wildlife and all that the CFW has to offer!

We are looking to lead up to 15 volunteers, ages 15+ (ages 12-14 can join if accompanied by an adult) on this great day. If you are interested in attending please email Michelle. We’ll take a break and enjoy a potluck snack time, so feel free to bring a dish, along with any tools you may have!

**Center for Wildlife's "Call of the Wild"- Annual Showcase and Silent Auction**
Thursday, May 31st, 6:00-9:00pm, Spring Hill, 117 Pond Road, South Berwick, ME 03908

Soar into Summer with the Center for Wildlife's biggest fundraising event of the year! Announcing Center for Wildlife's 1st Annual Call of the Wild Annual Showcase and Silent Auction. We've taken your feedback and are happy to offer a more accessible and engaging evening event, keeping the elements you love from our popular Annual Call of the Wild Breakfast. The evening includes:

Keynote speaker Sarah Brown, Owner and Director of Green Alliance
Appearances from our beautiful wildlife ambassadors
A chance to mingle with Center for Wildlife staff and other wildlife enthusiasts
Silent and Live Auctions
Music from local jazz pianist Dimitri Yiannacopoulos
A chance to join the Wildest Dreambuilder Pledge Society
4 tickets for wine tasting
4 rounds of hearty hors d' oeuvres

In an effort to reach financial sustainability, we are asking for a $40 suggested donation per person. Space is limited, feel free to RSVP and reserve your tickets, sponsor the event or offer a silent auction item, or make or learn more about making a lead gift for the event. You can also register for the event online by clicking here, or give us a call at 207-361-1400. We'd love to hear from you, and hope you can join us!

CFW In the News

Portsmouth Kate the Great Sale Leads to Wildlife Charity Donation
TheFullPint.com, March 21, 2011
When the Portsmouth Brewery celebrated Kate The Great Day at its downtown locale on March 7, the goodwill flowed beyond the city streets all the way to wildlife habitats in southeastern New Hampshire and southern Maine.The brewery will be donating $20,000 between The Southeast Land Trust of New Hampshire, headquartered in Exeter, and The Center for Wildlife in York, ME.

Center for Wildlife creatures meet kids at Wells Reserve
York Weekly, March 2, 2011
Some local children chose to spend their school vacation last week getting an up-close-and-personal look at an owl, hawk and albino porcupine at the Wells Reserve at Laudholm on Winter Wildlife Day. Kids flocked to the site with their families Feb. 24 and got to take a snowshoeing adventure in search of animal tracks after being educated about the three animals inside the Wells Reserve auditorium. The event was a joint collaboration between the Center for Wildlife of Cape Neddick, the York County Audubon Society and the Wells Reserve, organizations that provide children with education on wildlife and the environment.

In York: Center for Wildlife Makes Way for Ducklings and Other Spring Wildlife!
Fosters.com, Feb. 25, 2011
Center for Wildlife is happy to announce its third annual "Make Way for Ducklings" event Saturday, March 12, from 11-1 p.m. at the American Legion Post 56 in York, Maine. Spring is an especially busy season with an influx of injured and orphaned songbirds, mammals, ducklings, and turtles. CFW typically treats an average of 300 nestling songbirds, 500 juvenile mammals, and 50 ducklings in a season, on top of their normal caseload. Many of these injuries can be avoided, and the event provides a great opportunity for CFW staff to raise awareness and tolerance for wildlife and their seasonal behaviors.

Injured Owls Abound At Center for Wildlife
Seacoastonline, Feb 16, 2011
This has been an especially difficult winter for owls in Maine and the Center for Wildlife is seeking support to provide medical care for its heaviest load ever of injured owls.The center has admitted 36 owls (30 of them barred owls) since October 1. On average, the center sees fewer than 10 each winter, but all of its flight enclosures are presently full. Nearly all of these owl patients were hit by cars. The Center is requesting financial donations to help cover the costs of rehabilitating these owls. The organization has set up a special Emergency Owl Treatment Fund and anyone can help. Donate by credit card on CFW's Website, or mail a check to: Center for Wildlife, P. O. Box 620, Cape Neddick, ME 03902. All donations are tax-deductible.

Sanford third graders learn about bats' contribution to the environment
Foster's Daily Democrat, December 23, 2010
These boys and girls may very well look back on their experience in the third grade as the Year of the Bat. They and other third-graders throughout the school system have learned a lot about bats this school year. They've attended assemblies during which representatives from the Center for Wildlife showed them actual bats and taught them about their lives. And after learning that putting up bat houses is a good way to keep bats safe and help limit mosquito populations, the students took CFW's Stewardship Challenge (positive impact projects that encourage students to observe and become stewards of their environment) and hung up several bat houses around their campuses.

Owl be seeing you: pair of great-horneds released to the wild
Foster's Daily Democrat, October 24, 2010
With a gentle push and a flutter of wings, two great-horned owls took their first flight into the wild on their own after months of rehabilitation. Earlier this year, the two juvenile owls were given to The Center for Wildlife after falling out of their nests and suffering from severe injuries and signs of trauma.

Center for Wildlife & Wells Reserve team up on wildlife program for kids
Foster's Daily Democrat, September 28, 2010
Connecting children with wildlife and the habitats upon which they depend is the focus of a new collaboration between the Center for Wildlife and the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve. "Wild Friends in Wild Places" is an innovative school program for students in grades K-2 that introduces them to wildlife and their habitats.

Great Horned Owl recovers, released in the woods of Brentwood
Seacoast Online, July 16, 2010
A little more than two months after hunters rescued an injured great horned owl in Exeter, the bird was determined to be fully recovered and was set free in the area where he was found. It was on May 5 when the Center for Wildlife in Cape Neddick, Maine, received word about a great horned owl in distress, and within a few hours, the emaciated raptor was in good hands, literally, at the Wildlife Center.

Watch Out for the Turtles
WCSH6.com 6/15/2010
If you are traveling in some parts of southern Maine you might notice some unusual road signs. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the Nature Conservancy are posting road signs warning drivers of endangered turtle road crossing locations. The road crossings are located in Wells, South Berwick and York. Spotted and Blanding's turtles often travel to their nesting areas during this times of year. The department says if these signs can even help save a few of these turtles from becoming roadkill then it was worth it.

Rescue ME: The Center for Wildlife in Cape Neddick
The Portland Press Herald, 5/2/2010
It might have been the wind or some dust that put a tear on Tom Porter's cheek, but after he released the barred owl he had found injured five months earlier, he was visibly moved. He was standing at the First Parish Cemetery in York after Laura Dehler of the Center for Wildlife had passed him the rehabilitated barred owl to release back into the wild.

York fourth-graders support Center for Wildlife
news@seacoastonline.com, 1/8/10
Holiday donations were literally for the birds last year, as four fourth-grade classes at Coastal Ridge Elementary School worked together to collect donations for the Center for Wildlife in Cape Neddick.

A winter safe haven for all the birds and beasts in York
Foster's Daily Democrat, 2/27/09
Even in the dead of winter the Center for Wildlife continues to create a safe haven for animals whether they be an injured peregrine falcon or even a confiscated baby American alligator.

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