Meet the Founder

MaryEllen Schoeman, founder and president of Safe Harbor, started her animal rescue career early - at age five - when she insisted on going out in a rainstorm to scoop a drowning mouse out of the family pool. As a child she brought home injured birds, mice, and rabbits; there really wasn’t any such profession as "wildlife rehabilitator" in her tiny Maine town, so she taught herself from books how to care for her charges. It wasn't until years later, when she moved into the foothills of Los Angeles, in a neighborhood that backed up to Angeles Crest National Forest, that animal rescue went from a hobby to a calling. She never had a chance to even name her wildlife rescue - calls for "the raccoon lady" became too common to be called anything else. Her farm rescue, full of goats, chickens, and turkeys, alternatingly amused and annoyed her neighbors. Determined to move her animal care to the next level, she got a graduate degree in Conservation Biology from Project Dragonfly at Miami University, where she researched how animals and humans interact at the edges of urban areas. After MaryEllen and her husband's lives were upended by Covid, she fulfilled a lifelong dream: moving to a ramshackle farmhouse on 35 acres in tiny rural Seagrove, North Carolina to start a full scale rescue and education facility, Safe Harbor Farm and Rescue. Safe Harbor's first rescue arrived within months, a goat with brain damage named Nugget. Since then, the work has been never ending, as animals needing help flow in. For now, Safe Harbor is focused on farm animals, as they are most in need in the area. There are also long term plans for an educational center, and open farm days when the community can come visit. Safe Harbor has only been in existence for two years but is already bursting at the seams!