Money Monkey Wrench : Shelter Closing After 15 Years

There was Squeaky, the coquettish female Malaysian otter, and the mate she flirted with, Boy. And of course, Melissa the macaque monkey, whose injured finger was milked for all the sympathy it was worth----no less than four years after the fact.

Easy the raccoon, wounded but still strong when it counted, put a death-grip hug around your leg to keep you around.

Large and small, in need of first aid or major surgery, they were among the more than 30,000 creatures that have been treated at Orange County’s only fully state-licensed center for the care of all species of wild animals and birds.

But all that remain now at the North Orange County Regional Occupational Program’s Anaheim compound are several exotic monkeys and a few small mammals, and they soon will be gone--transferred to licensed care centers outside California.

After 15 years, the facility where orphaned and injured critters were nursed back to health and later returned to their native habitat closed Friday for lack of state funding and declining student enrollment, its directors said.

Under the Regional Occupational Program, high school students and some adults were taught to care for sick and injured animals at the compound.

But program directors said that while the facility has been successful in treating wounded animals, the program could no longer be justified on educational grounds--its primary function--because of a shrinking budget, declining student enrollment and limited job opportunities in the field of wildlife animal care. Recently, they said, only 12 students were enrolled per class even though the program is budgeted for 20 students.

The directors decided in February to close the program because state funding for the compound was no longer adequate.

However, Greg Hickman, instructor at the Anaheim compound, said there is still a chance that the 1.6-acre site at 2360 W. La Palma Ave. can reopen April 27.

Regional Occupational Program directors will discuss at an April 26 meeting the possibility of using private funding to operate the facility and renewing the facility’s Department of Fish and Game license under the auspices of the Alliance for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education.

More than $10,000 had been donated as of April 1 to keep the facility open. But at least 10 times that amount is needed, facility officials said.