San Francisco wildlife rescue nonprofit facing financial strain as it raises money for upgrades

By Amanda Hari

A San Francisco wildlife rescue is trying to stay afloat.  

The nonprofit, Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue, is experiencing financial strain after losing grants, changing regulations, and increased animal needs. Still, founder Lila Travis is determined to continue helping as many animals as possible.

“This year, we’ve had the most animals come in needing help and the least amount of donations,” Travis explained. “The world is hard right now.”

Travis said in a normal year, the rescue helps 700 animals a year. This year, that number is trending towards 850.

Travis started the rescue nearly 25 years ago because she saw a need. She was living in Oakland and had two experiences with wildlife, a catatonic opossum on her porch and a nest of squirrels that fell out of a tree in her yard.

Through those experiences, she realized just how few wildlife resources there were in the Bay Area. Now, she’s helping those animals. She said about 99% of the animals that come through her rehabilitation center get released back into the wild.

“The whole purpose is to raise them to be released back into the wild to give them a second chance back at life,” said Travis.

But now the rescue is fighting for its own survival. This year, they had two major grants come to an end, as well as some unexpected expenses.

“This cage right here cost $6,000, but we really needed it, so we bought it,” Travis explained.

Thanks to the help of volunteers, the nonprofit is able to run on a shoestring budget of just $100,000, but it also means they don’t have a lot of extra money for emergencies. 

In August, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife changed some regulatory laws, and now they will have to make upgrades that come with a hefty price tag.

“It’s great that they did that; it just comes at really bad timing because we just don’t have the funding coming in to make those kinds of adjustments right now,” Travis said. “That’s why we’ve had this emergency fundraiser.”

An opossum was part of the fundraiser this past weekend. He’s about 4 months old and came to the rescue this summer, they quickly realized he doesn’t have eyeballs, making him blind and unable to go back into the wild.

Travis said he has the perfect demeanor to become an education ambassador and visit classrooms, but he doesn’t have a name yet.

“We said, ‘Hey, for 5 bucks you can buy a ticket and give us your name suggestions, ‘” said Travis. “We’re actually going to carry that on online.”

The fundraiser generated enough money to get them out of the red for the rest of the year, but they’re already gearing up for another one in the spring, and they need to find a long-term solution.

“We need sustainable grant funding that we can count on every year in order to reliably be able to do this work,” said Travis.

She’s hoping she can find a grant, or someone will step up and help them. Travis still has plans of growing and helping even more animals as well as educating the community.

She is working with San Francisco Assemblymember Matt Haney to find a location for a bigger wildlife rehabilitation and education center.

“If you don’t get up close and get to meet wildlife animals, especially in cities, you’re not going to care about them and if we don’t care about them we’re not going to try to save them and that extends to our environment in general,” Travis explained.

She said these animals are essential to our ecosystem.