This house is crawling with critters – now with Virginia Beach's OK

VIRGINIA BEACH

Baby possums are in Evelyn Flengas' sink.

Don't go into the laundry room - raccoons are in there. And squirrels in the garage. A basket of baby birds is on the kitchen table.

This place is a regular zoo. A wildlife rehabilitation facility, technically.

Flengas and her husband, Jim, run Evelyn's Wildlife Refuge from their brick ranch house near Indian River and Elbow roads. They are among 35 wildlife rehabbers in the city who operate out of their homes - and among an increasing number who do it with the city's approval.

This week, the Flengases went before the City Council and got their permit, becoming the third sanctioned rehab center at the Beach. Five more rehabbers are scheduled to have their permit applications considered by the council in mid-May.

Until recently, wildlife rescuers operated on the fringes, one angry neighbor's phone call from a shutdown visit by the city. Two years ago, the City Council made it legal to be a wildlife rehabber and created a permit process. Among the requirements: Rehabbers must have a permit from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, animals can be kept no longer than six months, and the operators have to control odor and noise.

"It allows us to keep track of where they are, and it allows us to respond to complaints and see if they've complying," Clay Bernick, environmental management administrator for the Beach's planning department, said of the permits.

Plus, Bernick said, it gives the rehabbers "a little bit of cover, because their licenses are reinforced at the local level."

Beyond laws and licenses, to be a rehabber, you must be committed. Baby birds need feeding every 45 minutes to an hour, even through the night. You need a source of funding. An 8-1/2-pound bucket of raccoon formula runs $100.

And one more thing: "It doesn't hurt to be a little bit nuts," Evelyn said.

The Flengases, married 46 years, laugh easily, a product, they say, of their lifestyle. Evelyn said Jim was reluctant about the idea when she started rescuing wildlife 18 years ago. Now, she said, he usually has one or two birds perched on his shoulder when he comes back from the mailbox.

The refuge is run out of their house, on a typically large lot for this area of Virginia Beach. There's a collection of cages in the backyard, with names like "The Raccoon Hilton," "Wayne's World," "Jungle Gym," "Blazing Saddles" and "Finnegans Wake."

In the garage, there are more cages. The laundry room is the nursery. "The washing machine lulls them to sleep," Evelyn explained.

The animals are let out of their cages often.

On Tuesday, the possums were getting a sink bath from Evelyn. The marsupials' mother died and has been replaced by a fleece-lined pouch. The possums generally don't get names - that's a right reserved for the more personable raccoons.

There was J.R., and Layla, and Reeve, the quadriplegic raccoon. Ozzie Osbourne was the over-the-top, loud one. And their favorite was Mikey, who would eat anything. "He was a beautiful raccoon," Evelyn said.

They take in more than 400 animals per year, including foxes, rabbits, possums, squirrels and birds. Most come to them from Animal Control and from the Virginia Beach Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Many of the animals are orphans. Some had been shot or struck by cars.

There's no money in this game. The Flengases drive older-model cars. Before they became a nonprofit, their $18,000-a-year operation nearly broke them.

"This is not a glamorous job," Evelyn said. "But it's important we release healthy wildlife back into the wild."

Said Jim: "Nature abhors a vacuum. You get rid of the foxes, you're going to get rats in their place."

A few years back, Evelyn hit a low point. A parvovirus epidemic was wiping out the raccoons. They couldn't save them. She recalls standing in their yard, wondering whether there was a point in continuing.

Just then, a raccoon walked out of the woods. It ambled toward her, stopping at her foot, tapped her shoe with his paw, then retreated back to the woods. She recognized him instantly as Mikey.

To Evelyn, the message was clear: There will be more Mikeys.

John Warren, (757) 221-5114, john.warren@pilotonline.com