Animal Wonders is a small, non-profit organization located in Western Montana.  We rescue displaced wild and exotic animals and provide them a lifelong home.  Most of our animals become ambassadors for their species, visiting classrooms and public events, educating and celebrating their unique and important roles in the wild. 

This past July, we rescued a three-week-old orphan beaver who was in need of immediate medical attention and a safe place to stay.  This is Huckleberry.  He's grown quite a bit since we first met him, but he's still in need of a safe and understanding home, because he has a few challenges.

Huck has been diagnosed with ataxia and impaired vision in his right eye.  This means that he sometimes has trouble balancing, climbing, or maneuvering in his environment.   While we would love to see Huck swimming in the river and living in the wild, he just wouldn't be able to thrive or survive on his own.

In the wild, beavers live with their parents for two years, learning what to eat and how to survive.  In their third year, they go off and find a mate and start building their own home.  They eat water plants, roots, and branches of trees like poplar, willow, and aspen.  In the winter, they rely on their stashes of roots and branches to stay well-fed.  Beavers use their amazing teeth to create a safe home by chewing off branches and building a lodge, and they're always busy strengthening and repairing their homes against leaks and predators.

Huckleberry won't need to worry about keeping his home safe from predators or going hungry in the winter, but he will have many of the same needs that wild beavers do.  He'll need to chew and he needs to swim.  He'll also need materials to build a nest.  For Huck to be his happiest and engage in similar activities as his wild counterparts, we want to create a Huckleberry-safe version of a beaver's wild habitat right here at Animal Wonders.

Huck is still learning how to manage his disability, so we have him set up in this temporary space where he can practice maneuvering over uneven ground and branches.  Huck has a small tank of water where he's learning how to safely swim and build up his skills for diving in the future.

So here's the plan: We want to build him an enclosure with a large outdoor chew-proof yard with natural flooring and lots of room for tree branches.  Also, an indoor space where he can go to cool off in the hot summer months and stay warm in the coldest winter months, and the most important feature will be a large pool where he can swim, dive, and float whenever and however he wants. 

Here's the challenge: The pool needs to be able to be cleaned daily.  Have I mentioned that beavers poop in their water?  The pool also has to be able to be kept from freezing in the cold Montana winters.  This means that we have to build the pool into our current plumbing system and keep it temperature-controlled, which is a big construction project, but with your help, we can do it.  We need to raise $30,000 to build the indoor/outdoor enclosure and pool to give Huck exactly what he needs to live a healthy and happy life.  We've already raised $9,950 and received so much love for this special little beaver.  Please support Huckleberry and help us reach our goal so he can be the best beaver that he can be.  Thank you.