Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation

Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation strives to save the lives of injured and orphaned wildlife by rescuing and subsequently providing medical care, food and housing to injured and orphaned wild animals until they can be returned to their natural habitat. In doing so, we seek the highest possible survival rates and quality of life for those animals we treat. While in our care, our goal is to provide the best possible care with minimal stress to the patient while maintaining the animals in their wild state so that they will be in the best possible position for survival following their release.

Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation further strives to help people that find injured and orphaned wildlife by providing them with a resource where they can seek help for the animal(s). We explain the rehab process to them and give them an idea regarding the animal's chances for survival and releasability. They can leave the animal in our care knowing that they have helped the animal they found and hopefully also helped save a life.

Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation also helps people who are experiencing wildlife conflicts through both education and conflict mitigation. Most perceived conflicts are due to a lack of knowledge about a species and, therefore, the animals are perceived as a threat or problem when they are indeed not a problem. There are some true conflict situations, however, and in those cases we guide the public regarding humane and legal conflict resolution.

Lastly, Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation works to educate the public thus establishing an understanding. appreciation and respect for wildlife and fostering wildlife and habitat conservation. We offer educational programming to schools, youth groups, organizations, adult education classes and at general community events.

Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation operates two wildlife rehabilitation facilities in the greater Chicago area, including one facility in downtown Chicago. We provide rescue services throughout much of northeastern Illinois particularly focused on species that could be difficult or dangerous for untrained members of the public to safely secure.

Our facilities are where animals receive medical care, food and housing while they recover in preparation for their release and they also provide the public with a place to bring injured and orphaned wildlife they find. The downtown Chicago facility is of particular significance in that many residents of Chicago rely on public transportation and would be unable to bring an injured or orphaned wild animal to the suburbs for care. Further, the Chicago facility has enabled us to improve patient outcomes, particularly for injured (window collision) migratory birds rescued from downtown Chicago because the location's proximity to downtown means that we are able to provide medical care much more promptly.

We have also partnered with many municipal agencies throughout our service area so that they too have a resource for helping injured and orphaned wildlife. While some of these municipalities provide Animal Control services (or their police departments are dispatched on wildlife-related calls), they would be unable to provide care and need to pass these animals off to appropriately state and federally permitted wildlife
rehabilitation facilities. By partnering with them, we can provide medical care for the animals they rescue without Flint Creek Wildlife having to spend additional resources on the actual rescues of these animals.

Flint Creek Wildlife also provides a great deal of information to members of the public utilizing phone, social media and our website. We help guide the public regarding a wide variety of wildlife issues. Often these issues are related to whether or not intervention is appropriate in specific cases since the public sometimes is unsure whether an animal is in trouble and in need of assistance. Some of these calls and interactions are to educate the public about wildlife they encounter in order to dispel unnecessary and unwarranted fear. Some of these calls and interactions are regarding conflicts where wildlife is affecting a person's home or business and, in these cases, we seek legal and humane solutions whereby the purported conflict can be mitigated with minimal impact.

Educational programming is another key strategy we employ. Our educational programs serve as outreach during which the public becomes better equipped (know what to do and what not to do) should they encounter injured or orphaned wildlife. Educational programming also seeks to establish a fundamental appreciation for the breadth and magnificence of wildlife encountered in the Chicago area. Through education, we seek to leave the public with a greater respect for wildlife and nature.

We are an all-volunteer organization and we are not publicly funded, so meeting goals means effectively recruiting and training volunteers and also effectively utilizing scare resources. For example, by partnering with municipal agencies whereby their animal control department might rescue injured and orphaned wildlife in their jurisdictional area and then turn the rescued wildlife over to Flint Creek Wildlife for care, we can effectively maximize our impact and thereby help the most animals possible. We seek these types of win-win solutions throughout our organization's operations and have developed many incredible working partnerships in the process.

Volunteers are utilized both for day-to-day staffing and also for "ad hoc" needs. Most rescues are unpredictable by their nature, so in addition to normal planned staffing, we recruit and train volunteers from a fairly broad geographic coverage area and then contact appropriately trained and geocentric volunteers based on the species of animal in need of rescue and the animal's geographic location. This strategy allows us to respond more quickly to the public and animal's need plus gives us a greater pool of rescuers from which to pull.

Our educational component, particularly the website portion, has been developed over the years and is currently one of the most comprehensive sites. We developed what are effectively decision trees consisting of a series of questions for a wide variety of scenarios (e.g., "I Found a Baby Bird", "I Found a Duck/Goose that Is Limping", "I Found Squirrels Under the Hood of My Car"). The decision trees allow the public to get sound guidance at any hour of any day so that they can make the best possible decision for the animal hopefully thereby doing no harm. The decision trees also allow us to refer callers to what are effectively written instructions, making our phone interactions more streamlined.

Since our inception, we have helped more than 35,000 patients and have achieved survival rates that typically range from 68-70%, well above industry average. We will continue to help as many patients as possible and will continue to improve survival rates where possible. Despite these accomplishments, we are facing some definite organizational challenges that, if addressed, would allow us to significantly move the organization forward.

Our most pressing organizational need is for a larger facility in close proximity to our Barrington location. As such, we need the funding that would make a larger facility achievable. A larger facility would enable us to address a number of current organizational limitations: we need to increase patient capacity, which will require additional clinic space; we need to increase number of volunteers to better handle incoming call volume and patient care, which will require more space; we need a classroom in which we can offer educational classes and training programs since local spaces are not readily available and are generally cost-prohibitive.