KTUL.com - Tulsa, Oklahoma - Coverage You Can Count OnWild Heart Ranch Losing Some Funding

Wild Heart Ranch Losing Some Funding

At Wild Heart Ranch they house almost one thousand animals each year. But the USDA has changed the way they can ask for help.

"I lost thirty percent of my income and I did absolutely nothing," says founder Annette Tucker.

That's how Tucker feels about changes the USDA has made to her operation. They placed her into a category of exhibitor, meaning she can't use pictures or videos on her website. She also can not allow people to come to the ranch to see what her and her volunteers do. Tucker says even if she doesn't make up the funding she will never close because the ranch is her passion. She's spent fifteen years taking care of these sick or injured animals.

"What this effects is the territory we take in the expansion that we can make to take in those territories and the extra curricular rescues we do," says Tucker.

The ranch takes in wildlife animals from Rogers, Mayes, and Delaware counties. They just added another county so now they need to support even more. Right now they have about one hundred animals they are caring for. Tucker says one box of formula costs about four hundred dollars and she need one a week for just the doe. One long time animal lover says this place is all about the animals.

"The general public can't possibly understand what goes on here," says Ned Bruha, Vice President of the Skunk Whisper.

Tucker and her staff are getting ready for their busiest time of year. In June and July, they average about five hundred animals needing care at the ranch and she doesn't get attached to the animals because there are so many of them at one time.

"We may have two or three hundred animals when we have a cage of opossums and they are ready to go there done lets get them to the woods," says Tucker.

To nurse these animals back to health it could take anywhere from six months to a year and that's why they tell me they have to work so hard to make sure the animals aren't attached to them by the time they leave.