Wildlife Medical Clinic Organizational Meeting

Our mandatory orientation meeting is on Thursday, August 27th at 6:30pm in LAC 100.

At this meeting we will give a brief introduction to the wildlife clinic and students will sign up for teams. The clinic is going to have 10 teams this year, each lead by 4 students who have been previously involved with the clinic. Teams are required to provide daily care and assist with procedures (like diagnostics and surgery) for the cases they are assigned . This set-up provides a great opportunity for us to learn from and mentor each other.

If you are a U of I student interested in joining wildlife this year, we'll see you on Thursday!

More Summer Cases

The wildlife clinic is still as busy as ever. The ward is full of orphaned birds and bunnies, as well as injured robins, squirrels, raccoons and a screech owl. There is another Great Blue Heron in the ward, this time with a fractured right ulna and radius (fractured right wing).

This young raccoon has a fractured right leg. The "putty" on the bottom of his leg is an external fixation device. This holds the bone in place as it heals.


Today, we also triaged a fawn. The fawn came in with puncture wounds that looks like they could have come from an animal bite. The trusty summer staff put an IV catheter in the fawn's leg, gave her fluids and pain medication and bandaged her wounds. In the picture, they are finishing wrapping the wound on her abdomen.

Clinic Update

The ward has been pretty busy for the last few weeks. With only the two managers, interns, occasional help by students on rotation and a handful of additional volunteers, there is a lot to do over the summer! As always there are some pretty interesting cases, including:

Snapping Turtle

Orphaned Groundhog

Juvenile Cooper's Hawk

Turtle with a Shell Fracture

This turtle presented with a significant shell fracture. We've attempted to surgically wire the shell back together. Turtles heal slowly, but these shell fracture repair surgeries are often successful. Turtle shells are made of bone, and if realigned correctly, will heal similar to any other broken bone.

During Surgery

After Surgery

Clinic Update

Summer is always a busy time in the WMC, and right now there are a few interesting cases in the clinic.

First, there is a Great Blue Heron with a left wing injury.



We also have a very vocal juvenile Red-tailed Hawk.


This turtle needed to have a feeding tube placed to make sure he gets enough nutrients.


As always, there are a lot of juvenile animals in the ward over the summer. Thus far there have been 12 fawns! This one is recovering in an incubator after being hit by a car.

Summer!

Summer has begun at the wildlife clinic. All of the students have finished finals, and most of the volunteers have left to begin their summer adventures. During break, the clinic is kept running by the two managers, two interns and a couple of super devoted volunteers. There are quite a few cases in the ward right now, including a couple of mallard ducks, a juvenile swan, some squirrels. rabbits and a great horned owl. A garter snake just presented after being closed in a door and is currently down getting radiographs. With fewer volunteers and the continual influx of cases, summer is always exciting in the WMC!

Juvenile Swan

Mallard

Examining the Garter Snake

Garter Snake Radiograph

The arrow points to the spinal fracture. (Click on the picture to enlarge.)

Clinic Update 4/16

Activity in the clinic has picked up over the last few weeks. Every team has at least one case they are treating, and some of them are pretty interesting. The yellow-bellied sapsucker is still here, and we also have a woodpecker, a goose, a great horned owl, a turkey vulture and a couple of rabbits and squirrels. We also just got a couple of orphaned pigeons. Remember, young animals usually do best with their mothers, so only bring orphaned animals to us if you are sure they have been abandoned. Mother rabbits may only visit their nest twice a day to feed their young!

Team 4 with their Turkey Vulture

Canadian Goose

Great Horned Owl

Team 5 Rabbit Treatments

Orphaned Pigeons

Clinic Update

The wildlife ward is still pretty quiet this week, though we have added a couple of cases. We now have a Canadian Goose with injuries most likely due to trauma. The goose had surgery on her fractured leg this morning to place an external fixator to help stabilize the limb. By this evening, she was back to her feisty self.

Team 2 with their goose.

Team 10 re-wrapping their crow's fractured wing with a figure 8 wing wrap

Clinic Update

The ward is fairly quiet this week. We tend to see fewer patients when it's cold, and the last week has been no exception. We do have Freida, a red-eared slider who will be spending the rest of the winter in the ward, a great horned owl, a morning dove, and Neil, an American Crow with a fractured left metacarpal.

Our first WMC executive board meeting of the new year is this evening, and the new members will be taking over their positions. The volunteers who will be leaving their executive positions tonight have done a lot of great work for the clinic over the last year, and the board will definitely miss them!

American Crow

Clinic Update

A lot has been going on in the clinic lately. On Monday, Pistol, Noel, Penelope and Nokomis went to Robeson elementary school to visit a classroom. The students asked great questions and the birds enjoyed getting out of the ward. On Sunday (12/7), some of our education birds will be at Lincoln Square Mall for a holiday shop fundraiser. They will be there for a few hours in the afternoon, so stop by and say "hello!"

With the semester coming to an end, all of our volunteers are very busy with school. This doesn't keep them from keeping up with cases, though! Right now in the clinic we have several red tailed hawks, a screech owl, red eared slider and a gull. Though we typically have fewer cases during the winter, the patients usually need more intensive care.

We're also beginning the organization for our annual fundraiser Doodle for Wildlife. Doodle will be on March 7th, 2009. If you would like to donate items for the silent auction, please contact the clinic! We already have some awesome celebrity doodles coming and and will let everyone know when tickets for Doodle go on sale.

Screech Owl

Red Tailed Hawk

Clinic Update

Last week, the pager team got an unusual call. Animal control brought in a raccoon that had gotten stuck in a sewer grate. They weren't able to remove him from the grate when they found him, so they brought in the entire sewer grate! The grate itself probably weighed over 70lbs, so we had to wheel it (with the raccoon still stuck) down to the ward on a gurney to attempt to get the raccoon free. After some shaving, pulling, pushing, twisting and lots of lubricant, we separated the raccoon from the grate. The animal seemed uninjured, but we kept him under observation for a couple days to make sure he was fit to go back to the wild. We released him over the weekend after determining that he had sustained no injuries from his ordeal.

Settling into the School Year

Life in the wildlife ward has settled down a bit since school began. All of the teams have been assigned, team leader training is over and now we're back to just concentrating on treating our patients. We have orphaned squirrels and bunnies in the clinic, as well as several turtles (more than usual), a goose, a woodchuck and an orphaned jumping mouse.

The residents are doing well. Nokomis has taken to hooting as everyone who walks into the resident room lately. The birds we supposed to go to Oskee Bow Wow last week, but unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate. They have two events coming up, though. First, on September 21rst, the will be going to the opening of a forest preserve (more details to follow). Then, on September 27th and 28th they will be at Prairielands Feeds in Savoy. We hope to see some of you at an event soon!

Orphaned Jumping Mouse (only 4.5grams!)

Goose with external fixator receiving foot treatment

Red-Eared Slider

Cleaning up an orphaned squirrel

Welcome Back!

Students have returned to school (and the wildlife ward) this week. Team leaders have already taken over cases, and the first mandatory WMC team sign up and orientation meeting is on Wednesday, August 27th at 7pm.

Clinic Update 6/4

The warm weather has brought quite a few patients to the clinic in the last two weeks. We've seen robins, grackles, red-tailed hawks, an orphaned mallard duck, a young Canada goose, bunnies, squirrels, raccoons and a woodchuck! Many have already been treated and released or sent to rehabbers, along with the snapping turtle and turkey that had been with us for awhile. The most interesting current cases include a red-eared slider with a fractured shell, two fawns (one that had surgery to repair a fractured calcaneus!), and a juvenile bald eagle.

The resident birds also attended an event at Washington Early Childhood last Saturday. The school had a carnival themed open house, and lots of students and their parents stopped by to see Nokomis, Noel, Pistol and Odin up close. As always, we enjoyed coming out and talking about the birds and what we do at the WMC.

Feeding an Orphaned Fawn

Woodchuck

Juvenile Bald Eagle
Juvenile Bald Eagle in Radiology

First Week of Summer

The first week of summer has been pretty quiet in the wildlife ward. Some orphaned sparrows, raccoons and rabbits have come in, but not many new injured animals. The turkey is still here and doing well. The residents are enjoying the nice weather and have been spending their days out in the flight cages.

Flight Cage

Finals Week

Everything in the clinic is a little hectic because first and second year students have finals this week.

The orphans are still steadily arriving. 22 orphans were sent to rehab on Thursday! With such a high number of incoming orphans, it's important to remember to make sure that any orphans you find are really in danger before you bring them into the clinic.

The residents had an all day event on Thursday as well. We went to St. Joseph Ogden High School in St. Joseph to talk to a science class about the mission of the clinic, how to handle injured wildlife and the place of raptors in the ecosystem. The students were great and got to see the birds up close, as well as examples of casts and feathers.

Orphaned Killdeer

Clinic Update 4/29

Things have been running smoothly in the clinic this week. The third years have officially moved on to clinics, and the first and second year students have stepped up to help their teams.

The weather has been great, so the resident birds have been able to go out to their flight cages. They are very happy to get out of the ward for a few hours everyday. They also went to Petstravaganza on Saturday and helped introduce more community members to the WMC are our mission. On Thursday, they will be headed to a high school in St. Joseph.

Orphans are coming in and being shipped off to wildlife rehabbers regularly. 5 orphaned raccoons and 4 orphaned rabbits left the clinic for rehabilitation this afternoon. Make sure orphaned wildlife really needs help before bringing it to the WMC!

We also have several interesting cases in the clinic. Currently, we are treating a mallard duck with a right wing injury, a red-tailed hawk, an opossum, a turkey, and a snapping turtle. Lucy, the goose, has finally gone off to a rehabber.

Snapping Turtle

Turkey
Mallard Duck

Spring Break!

The College of Vet Med started spring break on Friday, so most of the student volunteers (including myself) are not in the clinic this week. The WMC will still be in operation, however, thanks to the superstar managers and some very dedicated volunteers who will be in Urbana over break. As always, the clinic will be accepting ill, injured or orphaned wildlife 24 hours a day.

Don't forget about the upcoming CVM Open House and our fund-raiser, Doodle for Wildlife! Registration for Doodle is now open, and we are getting ready for a great event.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Wildlife Medical Clinic blog!

This blog will be used to update the public about special events, daily happenings and cases of the Wildlife Medical Clinic.

The WMC is housed in the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine. The College donates clinic space and utilities, but all testing, feed, treatment and surgery costs are covered by the WMC budget. The WMC is a non-profit organization that depends solely on fund-raising, donations, and grants for this operating budget.

The Wildlife Medical Clinic accepts ill, injured, or orphaned wildlife (except for skunks and bats) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We're currently getting ready for our annual fund-raiser, Doodle for Wildlife, to be held on Saturday April 19th. For more information, keep checking http://www.cvm.uiuc.edu/wmc/doodle.html