"Wildlife rehabilitators, or wildlife custodians, as we are now called in Ontario, often do not have the opportunity to monitor the lives of their wards once they have been released to the wild. Sometimes that may be just as well, as even youngsters raised by their natural mothers often do not survive the first year of their lives or, for that matter, the first few months."
So writes Lil Anderson, author of Pond Memories. Lil is well known in the Lake of the Woods area for her extensive wildlife rehabilitation work and in Pond Memories she recounts her experiences nurturing the creatures that people less skilled bring to her.
Much of the action focuses on the antics of the menagerie in and around the pond on her property. (Originally dug for a young beaver named Eh.) Lil learns to cope with Brownie, a young bull moose who came to her half-drowned and suffering from pneumonia, and whose appetite for clay, squashed caterpillars, and rotting aquatic vegetation made Lil's stomach curdle.
Lil also raises a kit vixen fox, who one day happily leaves the makeshift den Lil had built, but not before retrieving a stuffed toy she slept with. And no tale of animal rehab would be complete with the appearance of a new beaver kit called Cameron.
Readers will enjoy the heart-warming story of Lil's life with creatures big and small, a life full of trials, triumphs, and heartbreak. This glimpse at the ways of Canadian wildlife reveals they are different from us, but not so much as we often imagine.