New DuPage wildlife hospital shows care for creatures great and small in ‘real time’

A young red-tailed hawk in need of a blood transfusion. A coyote found in a barn with a case of mange and hardly any coat. A great-horned owl with head trauma and a raft of other problems. A cedar waxwing, a masked bird with pops of red and yellow, this one with bone fractures.

On any given day, the DuPage Wildlife Conservation Center takes in such wounded animals and works to nurse them back to health. The before-and-after stories largely unfolded behind the scenes in an old clinic anchoring the Willowbrook Wildlife Center property, as it was formerly called, along Park Boulevard in Glen Ellyn.

“People don't understand that we can put surgical implants into 30-gram birds, which is an ounce kind of thing,” head veterinarian Dr. Sarah Reich said.

But in a new wildlife hospital and visitor center building, expert care for creatures great and small happens right in front of your eyes. The public exhibit hall just opened and features a linear series of large windows. Look through the glass, and you’ll be able to observe initial patient exams, procedures in a pristine surgical suite, and farther down the hall, especially in the busy season, hand feedings and how orphans are being reared until they’re old enough to hack it out on their own.

“One of the things that we really wanted to highlight was the real work being done here that is unique to the center, which is the hospital,” said Stephanie Touzalin, wildlife education supervisor.

There are windows into rooms designed for specific patients and to keep prey from predators: young raptors, a “rodent day care” and the “O-Zone” for baby opossums. Most of those little guys arrive in the spring. But as Reich says, “it’s not just squirrels and bunnies and fun, cute things” that end up in her care.

“It's a lot of trauma, it's a lot of poison,” she said. “It's a lot of things that humans cause, but also humans can prevent, which I think is a really exciting thing to showcase.”

The center’s patients

The 27,000-square-foot building — the centerpiece of a yearslong transformation of the campus owned by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County — itself demonstrates how to coexist with wildlife and support their environment. Bird-deterrent glass was installed on exterior panels. The center takes in thousands of migratory birds every year that are injured in window collisions, Touzalin said.

“So we certainly did not want to create our own patients,” she said.

Before they’re reintroduced to the wild, raptors work their muscles in an L-shaped structure with wood slat walls to help cushion bumpy flights.

Disabled and geriatric birds also moved into “Resident Hall,” giving them the choice of both indoor and outdoor space. A sandhill crane with the best name ever — Ichabod — was strutting around another enclosure on a recent afternoon.

Those nonreleasable animals are no longer on public view. The center is, after all, not a zoo. And their private housing is less stressful on the north side of the complex.

“Our red-tailed hawk, Professor, has been with us since 2003, so they definitely earned their retirement,” Touzalin said.

The center has transitioned from static displays of senior residents to a close look at wildlife medicine in action and the MacGyvers of wildlife rehabilitation. An immobile great blue heron was treated to fish and a comfortable setup, as seen in one of the many pictures in the exhibit hall.

With an illuminated X-ray box, you can also check out images of past patients. A common snapping turtle arrived with a visible hook in its mouth, and its radiograph revealed five hooks in all.

“Think about these things the next time you’re out using our preserves. And are you making sure that you’re not littering? Because animals will ultimately interact with that, and it can be deadly for them,” said Kevin Horsfall, the district’s planning and development director.

Surgeries to remove foreign objects are among the most commonly performed procedures. The medical team can still draw the curtains when appropriate.

“Our old surgery room also was where we took radiographs, also where we did laser therapy, also where we did ultrasounds. Everything was all crammed in one small space,” Touzalin said.

Back of the house, there’s an intensive care unit — a great horned owl rescued by the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors was patient No. 2025-11139 — as well as rooms dedicated to reptiles, birds and other groups. An indoor dive room has tubs for, say, a loon, merganser or grebe, an upgrade from “a kiddie pool set up in our garage,” Touzalin said.

“These have a great filtration system, and it actually provides a current,” she said.

An ‘awesome resource’

All four phases of the project — including the new hospital and visitor center, raptor barn, outdoor enclosures and a newly revitalized, roughly 40-acre area — are projected to total a little over $30 million. Private funding and donations awarded to the district total $8.8 million toward the project cost.

“The intent of the facility is not to increase the amount of animals we're bringing in,” Horsfall said. Rather, it’s to stabilize or lower the patient numbers through education and awareness.

So there are tips on encounters with baby animals, complete with an example of a makeshift nest. There’s an indoor and outdoor classroom. Along a trail in the “Back 40” area are vignette ecosystems with new signs, audio speakers and seating to observe the flora and fauna.

“All this combined together is going to be an awesome resource for us to be able to teach the community,” said Nate Hambel, a wildlife interpreter.

The whole message? Horsfall puts it this way: “Healthy wildlife, healthy ecosystems, healthy community.”