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A Brief History of TRAC  (1)

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In 1990, TRAC started out in a shack on Riverskye Farm in Brooks West Virginia. After 3 years,  our "porch hobby"  had expanded to where we had to move.
In the Winter of 1993,  TRAC moved into a modest, but proper building on the property of TRAC's founders, Ron and Wendy Perrone. 

Built to accomodate 24 birds at a time (including a small isolation ward for transmissable diseases), this little building  served us well. Except that in 5 years time, we outgrew it. Because TRAC was accumulating unreleaseable raptors for education programming, at any given time half of our cages were always in use. During daylight hours, the education birds were tethered outside to perches.
The 1993 building was augmented with 5 flight conditioning cages made of knitted polypropylene fabric that proved a good, cheap way to condition birds prior to release. But,upkeep was constant, especially in Winter, when, as you can see, they always took a beating from ice and snow loads. 

In 1998 it was apparent that something had to give, so plans were made for a new building. This would be TRAC's final home. It would have indoor/outdoor caging for our permanent birds as well as wards for patients. To this end , significant funding had to be secured for the project. In 2000 we broke ground in the summer and began building.

Here, we are standing up stud walls on the concrete pad.

By late Fall the building's walls were up, the  roof was on, and the footers for the outdoor caging for the education birds were poured.

Through the Winter and into the Spring of 2001, we worked on the interior and then the rest of the outside caging and porches in preparation for our grand opening .


And when it was all done, May 5, 2001 we were ready for our first open house of the year .


Cut The Ribbon!



The Festivities of the Day

The ribbon cutters are TRAC Board Chair Jerry Davis, Delegate Virginia Mahan, Executive Director Wendy Perrone, Board of Directors Member Cheryl Melkonian, Staff Veterinarian Dr. Bill Streit, Board of Advisors Member Curtis Taylor, Board of Directors Member Pat Barker, and Board of Advisors Member Jon Mahan.


Last but not least . . .
The old raptor ward was then converted to living quarters for our interns