Construction has been completed on a new clinic building at the Pre-Release Facility funded by the All Life Foundation honoring Naomi C. Dempsey. With a primary focus on the care of infant and orphaned wildlife, the clinic also has special accommodations to manage wildlife requiring longer phases of care, such as red foxes with mange, or bats that need to overwinter because of injury or illness.
The facility also has a specially designed enclosure for recovering waterfowl that provides an inside pool deep enough for the waterfowl to restore swimming skills.
“This is a clinic that can provide wildlife nursery care and extended rehabilitation for multiple species within the Pre-Release Facility complex ,” said Dusty Lombardi, executive director of Ohio Wildlife Center. “It is a significant addition to our entire program and it will expand our capacity to manage both the numbers of animals coming to the Wildlife Hospital and the large numbers of those animals that are infants and orphans,” she said.
Wildlife Hospital trends during the past three to four years have shown a steady increase in patient admissions that are clinically healthy animals that are infants or orphaned. Some years have averaged nearly 50 percent of wildlife patient admissions as being in that category.
“It was clear more space was needed to manage these numbers to optimize outcomes and relieve hospital overcrowding,” Lombardi said.
In 2018, 5,718 animals were assessed at the Wildlife Hospital, nearly 500 more than 2017. As 2019 closes, more than 6,200 patients arrived at the hospital from January to December.
Lombardi said that the new clinic has space specifically for infants, species-specific caging and exercise space during transitional care, and a food prep area. The building is completely climate controlled and also has flex space that can be modified for specific situations that can arise in the community, such as mange disease in red foxes.
All animals brought to the Wildlife Hospital will continue to be assessed and treatment protocols assigned at Billingsley Road, with clinically healthy animals transitioned to the new facility after an initial observation period. This will provide for better step-down care and housing for carnivores, according to Lombardi.
Both staff and volunteers will be providing the animal care as the clinic begins its operations and gears up for the busy spring season in early 2020.
“We are grateful to the All Life Foundation for funding this important addition to our rehabilitation program,” Lombardi said. “It is a great resource we have been able to design from the ground up to accommodate the special needs and the special animals we care for,” she added.