A Journey Through Time: Celebrating 40 Years of Gates Wildlife

Toronto is home to over 5 million people from diverse backgrounds but there is one population that is undeniably native Toronto is the raccoon capital of North [Music] America today we Mark a significant milestone in the history of gates Wildlife as we celebrate our 40th anniversary I'm filled with immense Pride reflecting on our journey since my humble beginnings four decades ago our vision then was simple yet profound to offer Humane solutions for wildlife management prioritizing the safety of both humans and animals which has never been done before looking back I'm grateful for the dedication and hard work of every member of our team who have overcome countless challenges to achieve success I hope you enjoy the short video as we reflect on the past 40 [Music] years [Music] here is our story as a young boy Brad Gates was fascinated with everything wild he spent countless hours exploring the forest that backed onto his yard learning all he could about his wild neighbors the animal that had the most impact on the young Brad Gates was an orphaned raccoon named Mandy as fate would have it Brad received Mandy from a wildlife removal company that took her away from her natural mother you remind me of the one I raised when I I was a teenager we had so much fun together and that's why I do what I do so that's why I got into this business um I grew up on a ravine lot and had a baby raccoon when I was 17 years old and it it became my constant companion we uh basically did everything together for an entire summer followed me everywhere and I even went and bought minnows and crayfish and put them in a a little shallow um bowl and watched Mandy learn how to catch live bait live food even taught Mandy how to raid garbage cans and then 2 years later after releasing her um she showed back up on my doorstep and uh we had a a bit of a reunion on my front lawn I emptied my refrigerator on my front lawn and the reason I knew it was Mandy was cuz I whistled the tune I would always whistle when I was about to feed her and I saw this recking crossing the street and I whistled the tune and Mandy stopped in her tracks ran over to me climbed up my pan leg and sat on my shoulder um and uh yeah it was quite uh quite emotional to see that I had taught a wild raccoon um to be domesticated while it was with me and then again taught it to live in my neighborhood although I never saw it until two years after the fact but uh yeah we spent about 3 hours on my front lawn I fed at peanut butter sandwiches and eggs and and everything and then never saw it again raising Mandy and the circumstances of how she was orphaned would later prove to be the driving force behind Brad's career path of developing a Humane approach with a loan from his parents he started AAA Wildlife Control better known today as Gates Wildlife Control he purchased a used truck and some rudimentary equipment and set out to hit the road with the the support of his family the pioneering groundwork by Brad during those early years set the stage for the overall mission of the company the passionate and hardworking employees that work with Integrity while embracing Brad's Humane Vision continue to push Humane Wildlife Control to the Forefront Brad is honored by all the support and recognition he has received over the years from the wildlife industry the media and his customers L to the lower roof okay go on go on you know where to go videographer audre brown with how you can guard your home against the four-legged trespassers they're cute but not when they're in your house no they'll grow up to do a considerable amount of damage in the Attic they'll destroy insulation to unwired and most importantly you need a reputable Humane company to deal with in Scaro Audrey Brown City News well Toronto is home to plenty of raccoons they can be found in countless neighborhoods across the city they have some company when it comes to the wildlife it's pry here it is a busy life for Brad Gates now this is what Brad is used to dealing with raccoons but lately there's a new pest in town I've just arrived at an emergency call and received about a half an hour ago it's kind of a cool call actually because it's uh an AP possum that's in the front of this house here look at that look at that can you see the teeth there and Toronto appears to be Prime real estate for that growing possum population I just arrived on a job site of one of my technicians and he called us uh about something that he found that's very interesting and uh and rare I couldn't believe it it's an incredible find um we've only ever heard about one in a litter um but in this case we have only one normal raccoon and his Litter Mate to albino one the normal one the animal extractors what we just witnessed was a a very maternal mother um protecting her young and any mother of any species would would do just that she's abnormally aggressive but she really just wants to to get us out of her way so she can collect her babies and kind of move on to her secondary dite and we can't blame her for that so we have um a mother skunk and we can see that there are little ones crawling on her and they're probably about 5 days old it's that time of year when animals move in and have babies in April we experienced a thousand more calls than we have in any other year uh so I that's a lot it is and there's a lot of people just seeing animals in their backyard that they've never seen before there's more animals in places that they normally wouldn't be simply because most would avoid humans and any places where humans would walk or or travel animals have now invaded that space because they don't feel threatened by the people that are are no longer there the idea is to remove the babies and leave them in a safe box so that the mom can come back and move them to a secondary Den in all my years of doing this I don't think I've seen such a maternal mother um we had her in a net she really didn't care of the experience and is so driven to get her babies he doesn't cry that's amazing and these guys would have never left the nest before there's the second guy hey buddy look at you there's three baby squirrels and a mother that were living in this pipe we have one of our new baby boxes okay into the baby box so that's all three close the lid to the Box keep it [Music] closed just to keep their attract action away from this wall we're going to just close it a little bit mom will easily open that [Music] up as you can see the baby is quite large for her to transport easily see that mother raccoon just grabbed the camera as I tried to put it up inside the hole the exciting part about this job is that something new can happen in a heartbeat and in how many years you got 35 I got 39 in almost 80 years of business we've never had a mother accur an attack jump yeah there always always a first all right five [Music] man [Music]