Center for Wildlife Staff, Board and Advisory Members

Karen and Barred Owl

Executive Director:

Karen McElmurry is a licensed wildlife rehabilitator with 23 years of experience. Karen grew up in Michigan, and always had a passion for helping animals. She worked at the Michigan Human Society, first with the dogs and cats, then moved to the wildlife wing in 1984… and has not stopped working with wildlife since.

In 1986 she interned at the Treehouse Wildlife Center in Brighton, Illinois, then headed to the renowned Owl Foundation in Ontario, Canada for another internship. The famous Kay McCeaver inspired in Karen an undying passion for owls, which is still evident to anyone who sees Karen with CFW barred owl Bianca on her arm. She then moved to New Hampshire and became the weekend wildlife coordinator for the New England Wildlife Center in Hingham, MA - an overwhelming but very educational job. After spending two years gaining valuable experience there, she moved to Maine and began her career at the Center for Wildlife, which was then only a couple years old, and was housed in a trailer with no running water.

Karen has been at the Center ever since, and her vision of wildlife rehabilitation is the guiding force behind the Center’s work. With her dreams and determination, and a lot of help, she led the Center to plumbing (which revolutionized the cleaning of poopy cages); a building, plus several expansions and renovations; the capacity for our current intake level of 1500 animals a year; a wide array of educational programs; and – most recently – a beautiful new enclosure for our non-releasable raptors.

In 2000, Karen was named “Maine Rehabilitator of the Year” by Re-Maine Wild, and she is frequently asked to be a presenter at state and regional conferences on wildlife rehabilitation. She lives in Cape Neddick with her dogs, goats, chickens, bunnies, a snake… and an infinitely patient family of Mike, Laurel, and Dillon, all of whom help to make CFW the success it is by generously sharing their wife and mom, not to mention being constantly co-opted into CFW projects.

Development Director: Laura DehlerDevelopment Director:

Laura Dehler has more than 20 years of project management experience in both the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. A native of Vermont, Laura graduated from Dartmouth College, then served as project administrator for several internationally-sponsored research projects at Harvard University in both the School of Public Health and the Institute for International Development. From 1994 to 2003, she worked at the State Street Corporation in Boston, trying out positions in every area she could think of, including government relations, policy research, executive communications, marketing, and product development. In 2003, she traded in her Boston commute for a drive just down the road to the Center for Wildlife, where she was finally able to realize her life-long dream of working with animals.

She started as an animal care volunteer, but could not quell her tendency to fill every empty niche she encountered… and the Center had a lot of them! This led her to a Volunteer Coordinator position in 2004, and in 2005 they started calling her the Development Director, which is really just a concise way of saying “woman of all work.” Laura is responsible for fundraising, finances, volunteers and interns, tours, the annual Open House, and board development. She also provides crucial animal care back-up throughout the busy summer months, and she picks up pretty much any other job that no one else is doing.

Among her many projects at the CFW, she established the annual “Talk on the Wild Side” fundraising and outreach breakfast. For her birthday in 2006, the staff cleared a space between the turtles for Laura to have an office at the Center, so she would no longer have an excuse to go home. In her spare time, she also works at the York Public Library and participates in a local choir. She lives in Cape Neddick with her husband Frank and their incredibly pampered cats.

Director of Intensive Care : Lorisa Ricketts Director of Intensive Care :

Lorisa Ricketts was always doing something with animals as a child, whether it was playing with salamanders and spiders she found, or making playground equipment for the chipmunks in her yard. When at age 10 she realized that she was getting too tall to be a jockey, Lorisa decided to become a biologist. Eight years later, she went to University of Wisconsin-Madison to do just that, and earned her BS in Zoology and Environmental Studies, taking a little time to learn ballroom dance along the way.

She fell in love with birds while studying ornithology and volunteered as a chick parent at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, WI, where she spent a good deal of time running and flapping her arms to encourage the chicks to exercise their wings. She planned to continue her work at ICF after graduation but fate intervened when she met her husband-to-be, an Englishman named Pete, and she surprised her friends and family by moving to Britain to marry him.

For six years, they lived in northern England where Lorisa worked for a non-profit agency as an environmental consultant to businesses in the largest industrial park in Europe. But her heart was with the wildlife and in 2003 she and Pete moved back to the U.S. and settled in Maine. After a bird hit her window later that year, Lorisa discovered the Center for Wildlife. She began volunteering at the Center that summer, fostered her first baby squirrels the following spring, and was offered a paid position soon after.

In December 2004 she and Pete moved with their two British housecats, two mice, and their dove to a haunted farmhouse on 10 acres. Lorisa promptly took over the basement as her rehabilitation space and is currently working on turning the backyard into a haven for “the beasts”.

Director of Operations: Amy TitcombDirector of Operations: Amy Titcomb

Amy Titcomb grew up in New Hampshire, and has adored animals her entire life. Since she didn’t want to be a vet or zookeeper, she was always told that there weren’t any professional fields where she could work with animals. Luckily, she knew free advice is worth what you pay for it, so she ignored these nay-sayers, and kept searching. In 2002, she went to South Africa on a whim and it was there she stumbled across wildlife rehabilitation, in the form of raising orphaned baboons. She got totally hooked when she volunteered at the CARE baboon center.

After a brief stint back in the US, she returned to South Africa a year later to help release a baboon troop (a 3-month process), and she went on to work at other African wildlife centers, primarily with penguins and other seabirds. From this experience, she learned that wildlife rehabilitation is fun and rewarding, college degrees don’t matter in the field, and wildlife rehabbers tend to be as crazy as she is. So, after wrapping up her Bowdoin College career in 2004 with a major in African Studies, she leapt back into wildlife rehab with an internship at the Center for Wildlife, and was offered a paid position at the end of the summer.

After heading to Tanzania for 6 months studying wildlife and ecology, she returned to the Center in June 2005, just in time for baby bird season. The following Spring, she was thrilled to accept a full-time position as a Rehabilitation Supervisor, and she has more recently joined the education team. Love of the Center has inspired Amy to stick around for a change, and she currently lives in Old Orchard Beach with a perfect dog named Wattson and a boyfriend Fred who’s pretty nice too… both have learned to tolerate a house-full of orphaned baby mammals all Spring and Fall.

Program Director of Education and Outreach : Kristen LambProgram Director of Education and Outreach : Kristen Lamb

Kristen grew up playing in the woods of Dracut, MA, until she accidentally strayed out of the forest and into business school. However, it didn’t take long for Kristen to realize that the indoor life was not for her, and she found her way to the Wildlife Management Department at UNH for a second college try. Kristen immediately knew she had found her calling: she adored her classes, and she earned additional credits for research projects.

Her favorite project was the radio-tracking of moose in the White Mountains, where she was lucky enough to creep up on a mother and her calf. During her second year at UNH, Kristen began volunteering at CFW. On her first day, she got a baptism by fire when a staff member put her in a small room with a bald eagle and asked her to force-feed it; Kristen was relieved to discover this was only a joke, but she was also totally hooked.

A couple months later, a position opened up, and Kristen gladly joined the CFW staff, ready for eagles or anything else. She learned a lot about rehabilitation, and also began doing educational programs with the Center’s permanent animals. In the summer of 2006, she took a hiatus from the CFW to work as a Park Interpreter at the Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island. This sparked an already growing interest in environmental education. In the late fall, she returned to the Center full-time, armed with her experience from Plum Island and unstoppable determination, and has taken on the development of CFW’s education programs: designing, enhancing, and presenting education programs both new and old.

Her goal is to help counteract the human-caused impact on wildlife through a combination of both rehabilitation and education. She now lives in Portsmouth, NH with some friends and a beautiful (if slightly mischievous) cat named Tiny Dancer.


Steve Corrigan at Raptor Enclosure Groundbreaking

Center for Wildlife Board of Directors

Board Chairman:
Steven Corrigan, Wells, Maine

Board Treasurer and Secretary:
Lee Sullivan, Eliot, Maine


Patti Cherri helping us keep things clean as well as
working on the development committee

Other Voting Members:

Mike Cannon, S.Berwick,Maine
Patti Cherry, Kittery Point, Maine
Karyn Scharf Morin, S.Berwick, Maine

Mike Goslin, Mike Cannon, and Mike Robinson our forever enduring facilities committee members.

(No your name does not have to be Mike to help!)

Center for Wildlife Advisory Committee

Non-Voting Members:

Karen Bracco, N.Hampton, NH
Michael Goslin, Cape Neddick, Maine
Mike Herlihy, S.Berwick, Maine
Sally Herlihy, S.Berwick, Maine
Hans, Hug Jr., Exeter, NH
Marilyn Marrotte, York, Maine
Michael Robinson, Buxton, Maine
Marge Titcomb, Yarmouth, Maine


Finance Commitee: Marge Titcomb,
Lee Sullivan, Karyn Scharf Morin


Marilyn Marrotte & Karen Bracco releasing songbirds
Sally Herlihy feeding baby birds

How you can help

There are a number of ways you can become involved with the CFW. We are always in need of volunteers, financial support, building materials and many other items. For a list of items that are always needed please take a look at our wish list.


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