A deep, reverberating growl comes from the kennel in the corner. No animal is in sight, but her snarls sound much too ferocious to be coming from anything small enough to fit into a cat carrier. As a human hand reaches in to start the daily cleaning of her kennel, the three-pound bobcat pokes her head out of the darkness, bears her razor sharp teeth and continues her menacing snarl. To most, this would be terrifying, but to veterinarian Dr. Jan White, it’s just another day at work.

White runs South Sound Critter Care, a wildlife rehabilitation center in the Maple Valley area. Her facility takes in virtually all wild animals in the area, big and small.

The latest addition to the center is a 2 1/2 month old bobcat, who is believed to be orphaned. Don’t let her kitten-like looks fool you, though. She’s definitely powerful and incredibly aggressive for her small size. If her tennis-ball sized paws were any indication, she will soon be much too large to pick up with just a claw-proof gauntlet. White and her staff will care for the feline until she’s well enough to go back into the wild on her own.

White makes it her mission to take in injured or orphaned wildlife, get them back to good health and release them into their natural habitat. So far this year, her center has taken in nearly 2,200 animals (a 24 percent increase from last year), and have between 100 and 200 animals at any given time depending on the season.

Being one of only a couple centers of its kind that takes in most, if not all, injured wild animals in Pierce and King Counties, it’s no wonder why she wants to expand the facility.

“We are being overrun,” White said.

They have a little over 100 animals right now and expect that number to increase, or maybe even double, by next year.

White relies on volunteers and college interns to help her take care of the animals.

Currently, she is working on getting a new annex and cabin ready for a few out-of-town interns that need a place to stay. During the spring and summer this year, White had 20 interns working at the center in various capacities. Some were local, a couple were from the eastern US, and one was from China, studying as an international student in Oregon.

A temporary fix, the new annex will not only serve as living quarters and a workshop for some of the interns, but also as a small aviary for the center.

However, White does have her sights set on something a little more permanent, a piece of land known as “Henry’s Switch” in Maple Valley.

The Maple Valley Parks and Recreation Commission held an open house Oct. 22 concerning the future of two city-owned properties, Henry’s Switch (14.2 acres) and a six-parcel property at 216th Avenue SE and SE 276th Street (5 acres). The former is currently zoned for parks, recreation and open space, PRO, while the latter is zoned low density residential – R6.

Neither property has been declared surplus by the city, but Greg Brown, parks and recreation director, said the parks commission and the city are looking into all options for both properties.

Henry’s Switch, located on the inner edge of the city limits near the intersection of state Route 169 and SE 288th Street, was purchased by the city from King County in 2001. At that time, King County had slated it for affordable housing, according to Brown. When the city purchased it, they designated it for parks use. With that designation came a covenant on the land.

“The city has to maintain it as public open space or parks and recreation space,” Brown said in a phone interview.

Now, the task is to evaluate what uses actually fall under those categories. It has to be “recreation in nature, but getting a definition is critical,” he added.

White thinks her facility would be a good fit for the community because in addition to rescuing wildlife, she also plans to expand the educational programs that they already do for kids in the community at the potential new site.

Currently, White and her staff and volunteers give educational presentations to local boy scout and girl scout groups. With the new facility that she hopes to build, she wants to also have a nature center with regularly scheduled activities for youth in the community.

A larger facility would not only let the center rescue more wildlife, it would also allow her to expand the current living quarters for interns, White said.

With all of these big plans circulating, some members of the community at the open house last week were concerned about the center causing their adjacent properties to go down in value if the center were to relocate to Henry’s Switch.

But, that is unlikely to happen, according to Phillip Sit, spokesperson for the King County Department of Assessments. When doing a property valuation, assessors look at topography, traffic noise and other things. Having a wildlife rehabilitation center next door is not usually on the list of criteria.

“We don’t take that into consideration,” Sit said.

However, he also added that he couldn’t speak hypothetically about how it may or may not affect market values.

“At this stage, the King County Department of Assessments cannot determine if the South Sound Critter Care will have an effect on assessed property values until after the facility is constructed and the housing market reflects the experience,” he said in an email.

Another entity interested in purchasing land from the city is a local developer, Integrity Land (Curtis Lang Custom Homes). Director of Land Development for Integrity Land, Jeff Potter, attended the open house last week and expressed interest in working with the city to purchase property “whenever and wherever possible.”

If the city decided to surplus property and then sell at least some of it to the developer, the 5-acre property discussed at the meeting would most likely reap the most profit for the city because it is already zoned as residential. Selling Henry’s Switch to any developer may not deliver the same amount of revenue, Brown confirmed, because it is zoned as open space.

However, Potter said there are options out there other than selling an entire parcel of land.

Hypothetically speaking, “maybe we buy a portion of (the land), and those funds allow the city to finish out the park portion of it,” Potter said in a phone interview. “We are a source of income for (park development), potentially.”

The parks commission is still about five months away from making any recommendations to the City Council for future use of the properties in question. The next opportunity for the public to give comment on this is anticipated to be Nov. 19 during a Parks Commission meeting. That date is subject to change and the type of meeting (open house, public hearing, regular meeting, etc.) has not be established as of press time.