Meet Our Team
Stephanie Ellis – Executive Director and Wildlife Rehabilitator
stephanie@wildcarecapecod.org
Stephanie is our Executive Director since March 2016. Stephanie has an enormous wealth of knowledge and passion for wildlife rehabilitation and avian conservation on both coasts. She holds a special affinity for birds and mice. She was the Animal Care Coordinator of the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley from 2010-2012. She also served as Executive Director of the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society, CA and spent 6 months as Interim Executive Director at the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory. She is most at home in her homeland of Massachusetts. In her free time she can be found catching a sunset, teaching dance, and exploring Cape Cod’s natural beauty and wonder.
Jennifer Taylor – Animal Care Coordinator, Wildlife Rehabilitator and Internship Coordinator
animalcare@wildcarecapecod.org
internship@wildcarecapecod.org
Jennifer Taylor is originally from Rockland County, New York. Her family moved to the Cape in 1970. Through countless trips to visit relatives in Brewster as a young child, she fell in love with the grasshoppers, field mice, red squirrels, foxes, bob-whites, gulls and goldfinches. After graduating from Nauset Regional High School, she pursued a career in art, studying at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Castle Hill and privately with other artists. She worked as a printmaker for several years in Provincetown and Wellfleet.
She considers her life’s masterpiece to be her family and she worked hard to juggle many kinds of jobs to fit into a mother’s schedule; ranging from landscape machine mechanic to estate management, along with years of volunteering in the Brewster’s elementary schools. After raising four children, the “empty nest syndrome” began to kick in and in 2002 a friend led her to Wild Care, where she participated in the baby bird program, was enchanted by the avian orphans and never left.
She received her wildlife rehabilitator permit in 2007 and became part of the Wild Care staff, and eventually accepted her current position as Animal Care Coordinator in 2013. Nurturing the orphan squirrels are admittedly her favorite part of the job, although returning a gannet back to the sea is a close second. She finds it a joy and a privilege to share in the lives of the animals who so enchanted her as a child, and doing her part to tend to the injured and orphaned wildlife of Cape Cod has become her passion.
Kerry Reid – Office Administrator and Wildlife Rehabilitator
admin@wildcarecapecod.org
Kerry “washed ashore” in 1983, at first in Centerville, then moving to Eastham in 1986. She and her husband Paul Lothrop, whose family roots on the Cape go back centuries, owned and operated Aattaboy Septic for 27 years, before he passed away in 2013.
In 1992 after finding a crow in distress in her backyard, Kerry met Karen Von den Deale (Wild Care’s founder) and started volunteering in her home clinic.
In 1993, Wild Care was formed and Kerry with other volunteers under Karen’s tutelage, became a licensed rehabilitator. When Karen gave her the opportunity to care for a juvenile crow at home, she was hooked on all things Corvid, and has cared for and released many Crows and Blue Jays over the years. “I am very grateful for all the experiences I’ve had and people I’ve met being a part of Wild Care, I look forward to helping the organization, in a new way, as Office Administrator.”
Leah Myrbeck – Wildlife Rehabilitator
Throughout all of her childhood on Cape Cod, Leah held a deep interest in and love for all animals. Many hours of her young life were spent reading about or drawing pictures of various creatures, spending time with the ones she shared her home with, or out in the woods among the wild ones. When she reached the age where she was able to understand the negative impact humans could have on the much revered animal world, she was compelled to lessen it in any way she could. She pursued her interests in art and animals into adulthood. Upon moving to Boston, she began working at Angell Memorial Animal Hospital. Here, she received a powerful introduction to animal healthcare and the many challenges and rewards that come with it.
She later moved to Watkins Glen, New York to work at Farm Sanctuary, an organization dedicated to spreading compassion for animals to those typically seen as food. There, she was part of a small team of caregivers for hundreds of rescued farm animals, including cows, pigs, sheep, goats, turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits. From there she moved to Seattle, where she worked at Seattle Humane Society, a high volume, progressive shelter for companion animals. As part of the veterinary services team, she was responsible for medical check-ins of new animals, assisting with spays/neuters and other surgeries, and making sure any health concerns for resident animals was addressed by a DVM.
Although she loved Seattle, and all of the west coast, Leah found herself wanting to return to the land from whence she came. She moved back to Cape Cod and started attending the Community College with a focus on art and life sciences, her two interests from the very beginning. At the same time, she started volunteering at Wild Care, in order to fulfill her need to work with animals in some capacity. Having taken care of and been fascinated by a wide variety of domestic animals, she was keen to get experience with animals that live wild, and also get a better understanding of the native wildlife that shared the land that she considered her home. All along her journey while caring for domesticated animals, times arose where there was wildlife in need, and although she felt a strong urge to help, Leah knew only rehabbers had the knowledge needed to do what was best for them.
Finally being in the position to be able to care for and help wild animals is something she has been dreaming about for a long time. After volunteering for a year, she jumped at the opportunity to be hired as an assistant while studying for the licensing exam. She adores all the animals that pass through Wild Care’s doors, and nothing makes her feel better than seeing them regain their health and return to their homes. In June 2016, Leah passed her rehab exam and is extremely excited to have entered the world of rehabbers!
Eva Carbonaro, Director of Outreach, Marketing and Events.
events@wildcarecapecod.org
Eva made Cape Cod home after years of family vacations here. Originally from NYC she was drawn to the Cape for its natural beauty and laid-back lifestyle. She has always enjoyed being creative and has worked as a graphic designer and event coordinator for newspapers in NYC, Cape Cod and for the YMCA. She uses her love of design and architecture to restore and remodel old homes with her husband Steve and has had her work featured in This Old House Magazine.
Eva is a mom of two twenty-something sons Christian and Matt, and a happy dog-mom to three dachshunds Nathan, Layla and Bella. She is president of Cape Cod Doxie Day, a non-profit that participates in animal related events and organizes an annual dachshund festival in Barnstable Village.
Gionet Hasson, Wildlife Rehabilitator
Gionet is a Wildlife Rehabilitation Assistant. She’s been back three times! In 2018 and 2019, she was an Intern with Wild Care. We like her so much, we hired her as seasonal staff in 2020 to help us through the busy season! Gionet is originally from California and is living in Eastham. She graduated from Wheaton College in Norton, MA in 2020, with a degree in Biology. She came back to Wild Care because she enjoyed her time with us. Some of her Wild Care highlights are that she “loves learning new things”, “helping with rescues and caring for baby birds”.
Amy Sanders, Wildlife Rehabilitator, Volunteer Coordinator
volunteer@wildcarecapecod.org
Amy Sanders has an MS in Special Education and taught in elementary special needs children for 33 years (29 of them in Orleans). She early-retired in 2016 to more deeply connect with nature and family, and to further pursue her secondary career as a professional artist painting for Addison Art Gallery in Orleans.
She has been a Wild Care volunteer herself since shortly after she retired. She is trained to do field rescues (mostly on the Outer Cape), feeding of young orphaned squirrels and birds, communications, talks and educational animal handling (as well as joining the fall sea turtle patrol for Audubon). She also writes of her wildlife adventures for their e-newsletter, Duck Tales.
Amy lives in Truro, with her menagerie of pets. In addition to her love of family, wildlife and art, Amy loves to indulge in reading (most often in the sciences) and extensive hikes all over the Outer Cape.
Chelsea Peck, Wildlife Rehabilitation Assistant
Chelsea Peck is originally from Connecticut. She always loved and wanted to take care of every animal she saw. Her love of animal rehabilitation grew after volunteering with Mystic Aquarium’s animal rescue program for three years and being able to work with seals and sea turtles. Chelsea pursued a degree in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut in order to understand animals better and gain more knowledge about them. After graduating, she moved to Cape Cod where she had visited every year growing up.
Chelsea started at Wild Care as a seasonal wildlife rehabilitator assistant and was excited to learn more about local wildlife. Once the busy season started up again the next year, she was thrilled to be able to return. She then started volunteering at the National Marine Life Center in Buzzards Bay to gain more experience with marine life.
In her spare time, she loves doing wildlife photography, especially of birds, painting and drawing, and spending time with her all time favorite animal, her pug Walt.
If you have an animal in distress, please call our Helpline at 508-240-2255.
SWEPT FROM THE SEA – AN ANGEL AMONGST US
This gorgeous little Blue Angelfish is one of the tiniest and most unique patients we've ever had at Wild Care. Photo courtesy of the New England Aquarium.
READ ALL NEWSCALENDAR OF EVENTS
26 October, 2024
GARV’S GREAT PUMPKIN HALLOWEEN PARTY
EVENT DETAILS
02 October, 2024
Wildlife Fall Talk Series
EVENT DETAILS
15 June, 2024
Wildlife Baby Shower 2024!
EVENT DETAILS
DID YOU KNOW??
Wild Care has a state-of-the-art seabird therapy pool, which allows seabirds and waterfowl to exercise on running water. This will help our bird friends recover more quickly so they can get back to their watery habitats!