Raptor Rehab

Project treats injured birds while providing opportunities for future vets.

By Jedd Rosche

Published July 12, 2006

News crews, community members and bird watchers assembled at the Raptor Rehabilitation Project at an east campus building that includes administrative offices, barns, cages and enough space to allow injured birds to spread their wings.

The center has been rehabilitating birds since 1972, and the occasion was another introduction of healed birds to the wild. This time, it was three barred owls and a red-tailed hawk.

One-by-one, volunteers released Chipper, London, Willow and Erol at dusk last month.

Save the actions of a few territorial black birds, the release was a success, and the birds have been living on their own now for almost three weeks.

Their departure symbolized the climax of several months of work by veterinary medicine and ordinary citizen volunteers at the center.

The project's leader, Erin West, said she got involved as an undergraduate student.

"I was attracted to the project because I was a pre-vet student with an interest in wildlife and exotic species," she said. She said anyone could participate in the project.

"That's what really appealed to me," she said.

Though the MU College of Veterinary Medicine offers opportunities to work with a wide variety of domestic animals, it does not give students the opportunity to work with raptors in a classroom setting, said John Dodam, MU College of Veterinary Medicine dean of academic affairs.

"Our students are in general curriculum," he said. "In order to fulfill their licensure, they have to work with a variety of animals. That's not to say there aren't students who want to limit their practice to a subset of species."

Dodam said any outdoor animals that aren't domesticated qualify as an exotic species.

"We don't have an emphasis on exotic or avian species at our college, although there are elective or externship opportunities in these areas," he said.

It takes two years of class work before the students have the opportunity to work with live animals or in the clinics.

It was this roadblock that prompted the raptor program more than three decades ago, West said.

"The founding students had an interest in falconry and in learning more about raptor medicine and rehabilitation," she said. "They started with taking in injured eagles, but spread to all raptors."

Though the project is an official club within the College of Veterinary Medicine, donations pay for most of the costs.

"We also offer an adoption program where the public can sponsor one of our permanent residents," West said. "Their contribution helps go towards the cost of feeding that bird."

The club also sells T-shirts and hats at outreach events to generate some revenue.

Jennifer Hamel, a doctoral student in biology, said it was one of these outreach events that attracted her to the project.

"Last August, a friend invited me to a raptor project lecture on turkey vultures," Hamel said. "That was my introduction to the project."

Ever since, Hamel has been a volunteer public relations officer, with duties ranging from scheduling community events to helping release birds back into the wild.

The majority of her time is spent working on presentations for the public. The project has eight resident birds, and federal regulations require that if a bird held in captivity can't be released into the wild, it be used for educational purposes.

Hamel said that human interaction is good for the birds.

"Our resident birds experience a high quality of life," Hamel said. "Education programs provide a positive way to engage them and get them outside the project facility for a day."

West said despite the group's growing popularity in the community, the project is always short on volunteers.

"It can be a big time commitment, depending on how involved our volunteers want to be," West said. "We have about 10 or 15 people who are extremely dedicated and put in a lot of time with raptor care and maintaining our facilities."

West said she spends between 15 and 30 hours a week at the project. She said the most challenging part of her job is balancing schedules among volunteers.

These include newly inducted members, who help with office upkeep, secondary volunteers, who assist in the operating room, or the few primary volunteers, who pick up injured birds.

"It's so rewarding to work there," Hamel said. "The people are very energetic and enthusiastic. You do have to remind yourself to stay focused on your studies."

The project also receives a lot of public support from its father institution, the College of Veterinary Medicine.

"The Raptor Rehabilitation project is a great program," Dodam said. "In addition to rehabilitating birds of prey, the participants participate in public education and gain experience in avian medicine."

And if last month's release in any indication, the project will continue to be involved with the community, releasing more birds.

"We hope to do more events like that in the future," Hamel said. "It's a way for us to invite the community into the project for a closer look. We've been working with a broad-winged Hawk for about six months. The bird had a fractured humerus, which has healed."

Assuming all goes to plan, Hamel believes the bird will be released when the migratory period for broad-wing hawks begins in the fall, and she can become another success story for the project.