How do you feed wounded raccoons and abandoned baby bats? This Niagara wildlife centre finds a way

How do you nurse a baby bat with a "tiny, itty bitty, teeny weeny little mouth?"

That's a question Cara Contardi had to answer last year when her team started caring for four bats from Oakville, Ont.

"What kind of feeding implement can I use?" She remembers wondering. 

Contardi, the director of Urban Wildlife Care in the Niagara Region, had seen someone nurse bats with a tiny sponge, so she went to Shoppers Drug Mart, where she purchased an eye-makeup applicator. She cut that in half and soaked it in formula, then gave it to the baby bat so suck on. 

"It worked like magic," she said, and the bats "grew up to be big and beautiful," Contardi told CBC Hamilton. 

"That's wildlife rehabilitation." 

Contardi's centre in Grimsby, Ont., has operated since the late 1990s. It's one of about 70 authorized wildlife rehabilitators in the province — sites that provide crucial care to undomesticated animals, despite the rising costs to run such a service.

WATCH | Cara Contardi shares how she learned to nurse baby bats

On its website, the Ministry of Natural Resources describes rehabilitation as the process of "providing temporary care to wildlife that is injured, sick or immature to help them successfully return to the wild."

Only authorized custodians are legally able to provide this care. 

At the centre, Contardi describes herself as being responsible for "all the fur." She helps rescue, treat and release animals including squirrels, raccoons, foxes and bats from the Niagara, Hamilton and Halton Region. 

The work is funded by donations and government grants, Contardi said. She works in a local animal hospital where she's connected with veterinarians who help out at the wildlife centre when they can. The centre also employs students through grants. 

Growing up, Contardi said, she was always bringing home injured animals to her family's home in Hamilton. But when she got older, she started working in fashion and opened a store where she made and sold dresses.

In the late '90s, Contardi said, she found an injured bird and took it to a wildlife rehabilitator who inspired her to change fields.