- If you are an injured eagle, hawk, owl or falcon, the best place you could ever hope to come is the Teton Raptor Center here in Wilson.

Founded in the 1990s, today it's a spectacular, comprehensive facility based on the four pillars of training, healthcare, education, and rehabilitation.

I'm Steve Peck of Wyoming PBS, this is Wyoming Chronicle.

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- The Teton Raptor Center boasts a half dozen buildings, a busy staff of 24, not counting the interns and a full board of directors.

The Wilson-based nonprofit helps rescue and treat more than 160 birds of prey every year, and gradually has expanded its work to include research, education and community programming.

Teton Raptor Center is big now, but it wasn't always that way.

The idea began more than 30 years ago with one man, Roger Smith, and a red-tailed hawk named Ruby.

Let me ask you about the days when you were in your garage, as you described it earlier, with a roll of tape and some wire or something.

Is this bird in this photograph part of that?

Who's the bird there?

Was it- - Right.

That is a red-tailed hawk that came from a friend of mine that I had known of, a veterinarian and a falconer in California.

I was trying to start this center, and I was going at it very slowly and from an organic perspective, and I wanted to take birds into schools, kindergarten classes on up.

She called and said, "I have a red tail hawk that's blind in one eye."

You'd never know, it's cosmetically, she cosmetically perfect.

Kind of was leapfrogged across from California and I went down to Salt Lake City and met one of the friends who was transporting her, and she was golly with me in that program for 15 years.

And just a delightful bird and... - You say a delightful bird, and it's not a puppy or kitten curled up purring in your lap.

- [Roger] Right.

- What's delightful about a red tail hawk?

- I had the great opportunity in life to do my graduate work on red-tailed hawks and owls and other species in Grand Teton National Park.

- Hard to beat that.

- It was hard to beat that.

And we had an issue going on with a very common raptor in a very protected landscape.

So, there was a really neat puzzle there.

Although they're common and people go, "Ph, there's another red tail."

There's not just another red tail, these are gorgeous birds.

But to your point, this bird named Ruby, I think my son was six at the time, named Ruby.

They're all individuals, and so to be able to go into a classroom of little kindergartners who aren't gonna sit still for two seconds, and have the disposition to just be there, stay calm, is unique, and not many will do that.

And in our program here today, the birds that we have in our educational program have to have that disposition.

- [Steve] The foundational core of the center is caring for ill and injured raptors.

With the days of Roger Smith's garage now far behind, TRC today includes a raptor emergency room, an intensive care unit, a bird hospital ward, and a bird dormitory for a few permanent raptor residents.

Visitation rules are strict for the numerous outsiders who tour the center, including wearing clean over the shoe booties while inside the treatment facility.

Wyoming Chronicle's guide was the center's CEO Amy Brennan McCarthy.

- This is known as the Roost, is home to 12 avian ambassadors.

So, these are birds that are permanently with us.

They travel to schools, they go to offsite events, they do programming in the Hardiman Barn.

And their purpose in life now since they can't be out in the wild to help calibrate ecosystems, they are here with us to be ambassadors for their species, and to share the message of the role raptors play in the ecosystem.

This is where food gets prepped.

I don't know if we have any like yummy little nieces pieces today, but all the food gets prepped in here.

We serve rats, mice, chick, chicken, quail and rabbit here at the Raptor Center.

We get all that food, whole and frozen.

And it is prepared by not only a team of great staff members, but a wonderful community of volunteer supporters.

So, over 7,000 hours of service annually to Teton Raptor Center.

Much of it largely dedicated to food prep and cleaning.

But this space is home.

So, it's a sanctuary space for the birds and also exercise and enrichment space for the birds.

You can see all these little white puffs on the floor are actually placements for purchase.

So, that tells you a little bit about the exercise that we're able to offer the birds in here.

We've got perches at each end of the hallway, and we can place them at various distances outside of the enclosures for the birds to hop out onto a perch and then maybe fly over and get onto a scale.

The birds get weighed every day, they're fed every day, their enclosures are cleaned every day.

So, there's just the highest quality of care, and a lot of opportunity for movement for the birds in here.

Now that said, the birds have a variety of conditions and circumstances for why they're with us.

We have a golden eagle here named Gus.

He's 19 years old this year, he actually lived at the home of Roger and Margaret, our founders.

And today he's here, he's never flown in his life, so he's one of our great hoppers, and he'll, all of his perching is sort of waist high.

So, everything is catered to the abilities of the Union Ambassador.

We're always very concerned about the bird's feet and the condition of their feet.

So, to keep them healthy, we use this turf mat, and you, let's see... Show you.

So, our birds do programs on site and offsite.

And when they go offsite, they travel in these nice little kennels made by a volunteer of ours.

And so, inside will go one of these mats when they're traveling.

So, not only is it good for the bird's feet, but it's also easy cleaning.

You may have seen a big basin as you walked in, putting your shoe covers on.

That's where we clean these mats.

So, no bird bathrooms.

- [Steve] Programming and enrichment comprise part of the function of Teton Raptor Center.

The other major component of the work is treating ill and injured birds.

And the staff here is considered among the best in the nation at that job.

- You are here at a optimum moment of high patient load for us, which is pretty standard this time of year, July, August into September.

I wanna show you where a bird ideally completes their rehabilitation journey.

We have something called a flight barn.

We're very lucky to have this space.

It was something we didn't have until we did the site improvements here.

And if a bird advances to the flight barn, its next step is back to the wild.

So, that's what we're striving to do with every patient that comes here, is to return that bird back to the wild.

And once it gets into the flight barn, we've got a really high volume space where birds can fly around.

There's a variety of perching in there.

And it's also designed so that it's like a race course.

We're just coming out of the Olympics, so you know that style track.

Well, we basically have a flight track in there and, but because we never know how many patients we're going to have at one time nor what species they'll be, we want to be as versatile in our approaches to all of the spaces on the campus as possible.

So, in the flight barn, we have two massive sliding doors in the center, and when we slide those doors out, we create two high volume spaces.

And right now we have birds over there that are on that last step of their rehabilitation.

When you come into the clinic, this is where a bird starts its rehabilitation journey with us.

Here in this clinic alone annually, we will see 20 to 25 different species of raptors here.

And, you know, that's where our specialty really is, because of all that we can learn from the field and our conservation team bringing that back in, we can really provide all the appropriate care to get those birds out into their specific environments and eco tones to do the work that they are meant to do.

Over here is the exam room where we have a lot of tools, technology, equipment, diagnostics.

And off of the exam room we have two other rooms.

One is X-ray, we have digital X-ray here on site.

So, we see a lot of birds that come in with fractures and we're able to do those quick diagnostics here on site.

We have a team of advisory council members that provide insights for us, and we can easily, with this technology zap off an X-ray to them anywhere around the country and get feedback on the next courses of care.

We do have a veterinarian that works with us one day a week here.

And then we have a very, very talented team of staff members who are wildlife rehabilitators that provide the bulk of the care here.

And the bulk of the care, 95% of all the care and treatment happens right here on site.

Occasionally we'll down to Jackson to a veterinary clinic there for the pinning of an orthopedic bone, but we're starting to pick up on doing that right in house now too.

The other room that's in the clinic is the ICU.

So, this is a very small contained zone.

It's got a bunch of kennels in there that are about the size of a large dog kennel, and it also has supplemental oxygen.

So, that's a first course of care for most of the patients that come through here and a great therapy to get them started on their recovery journey.

So, the ICU is quite full right now.

You can all take a quick glance at our patient board, and it doesn't end there.

Yes, it goes over there.

So, that means that 19, 20, 21, 22.

I think we're 24 patients right now, very high patient load.

Let's see, what would be a good one?

Let's, we can take a look at this one here as an example.

So, all the patients, we've got a lot of back of the house technology to help us track all the patients, you know, what they're eating each day, any of their medications, et cetera.

But this is the quick glance board of who's in house.

So, every bird gets a card and every bird gets a name.

Not like the birds were named over in the roost.

Those birds work with us, they're our colleagues, they're our coworkers, they travel into schools, go to programs.

And so you might meet Gus the Golden Eagle or Cash the American Kestrel.

Here in the clinic, we don't name them in that way, but all birds get a four alpha code.

This one is G-H-O-W. Any guesses what that one is?

You got it!

Then 832.

Any guesses what that is?

That is the date of admission.

And then this bird has a letter, A.

That means that we actually received two great horned owls on August 3rd.

So, one is A and one is B, that list could go on, occasionally, but usually two of the same species is a lot for one day.

Sometimes if we get a lot of them, we do have a little stash of nail polish here where their talents get painted so we can distinguish which one from the other.

The other information that's on these cards tells you where this bird came from.

This one's from Driggs, Idaho.

We annually will see almost a 50/50 split between birds coming from Idaho and Wyoming.

You know, mind you we're 12 miles from the Idaho border here and the birds don't know those boundaries.

And we're really pleased that we can service both areas.

The other information is sort of the circumstance.

Okay, this bird grounded, wing droop.

Collisions are the number one cause of admission here.

And it varies from car strikes, window strikes, we see birds get entangled in bailing twine, fishing line.

They've suffer from electrification and they also ingest toxins.

So, that is a broad categorization of why we see birds come into our clinic.

Oh, and then it also says diagnosis.

So what's going on here?

This bird is suffering from soft tissue damage to its right wing.

So, the other things that we know is that this patient is in the PCU.

We like that, because that means it's out of the ICU.

It is down this corridor here, which is a building that is exclusively rooms for patients, more of the size that you just saw like in the roost.

So, that's kind of stage two.

Stage one here, ICU.

PCU, Patient Care Unit, and then onto the flight barn is the last stop.

We need these birds to be, if I go back to the Olympics, they kind of need to be that Olympic level athlete to be able to survive out in the wild.

So, if a bird isn't able to be returned to the wild, we have a couple, we have few different paths.

One, of course is, if it is not going to have a comfortable existence, if it could be deemed for human care or for educational placement, then humane euthanasia is an avenue for it.

Otherwise, we do network with other organizations throughout the country that have live avian ambassador programs.

Either birds that may be showcased in aviaries or birds that are on glove as they are in our program.

And we'll look to place those birds.

Right now we've got great horned owls, they tend to be around the most common species we'll see annually.

Great horned owls, Swainson's hawks and red-tailed hawks.

So, Swainson's, red tail, a little Northern saw-whet owl, tiny owl, cavity nesting owl, on up to a really big bald eagle.

More Swainson's hawks, red tail, Swainson's, Swainson's, Swainson's, Osprey.

Exactly.

So, good diversity and very representative, you know, concentration Swainson's hawks this time of year.

They're only here this time of year, so they'll travel 6,000 mile migration down to Argentina here in the fall.

So amazing they come up here to breed, and that's why we see such a huge patient load right now, right?

We're attracting a lot of raptors that are coming back as this being their breeding grounds.

And because they're breeding, there are more young ones out there getting into trouble this time of year.

And Teton Raptor Center is here to help.

So, a lot of the birds that we get are called hatcher.

So that means they're, they just hatch this year.

So, they're the youngsters.

And overall, you know, raptors don't have a high success rate their first year of life.

So, it's a rough wild world out there.

And where they do get into trouble, if we can help, we do.

- The many different types of raptors being treated at the clinic reflect the species diversity in Wyoming overall.

Roger Smith, co-founder of Teton Raptor Center, says no other place in the continental United States can match Wyoming because our state can support them all.

How many raptor species are there in Wyoming, do you think?

- Yeah, I would, easily 30 species.

- Really?

- And some have come through, maybe they're not nesting, but if anyone has a love of these big, beautiful birds that are easy to see, they're charismatic.

If you wanna learn to be a birder, whatever that is.

Okay, that's a big bird, I can see that, right.

Within this greater Yellowstone, you know, ecosystem- - Which is a much bigger area than the name might suggest.

- Yeah, that's, boy, roughly, I don't know, let's see.

You could probably take, you know, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts, it's the size combined is what we're talking.

And you have a love for birds and raptors, this is where you'd want to be.

And in the lower 48 states, I think from all literature we have, this is almost twice as many different species of anywhere else in the lower 48.

And when you think about what that means, right?

These all have a way, they all have to go kill something essentially.

And how did they divvy up that pie?

And if there's six species, okay, we can kind of, I'll take the rabbits, you take the mice and the bowls, I'll take fish.

If you have 30 all trying to interact, make a living doing it, it must tell us that those particular slices of the pie are all intact, they're still there.

And if the habitat's there, then the mice to the pocket gophers to the ground squirrels, all the way up, are all there.

So, I would only hope in a hundred years there's still 30 species here.

Then that's gonna tell us there's no other way probably to get an accurate assessment.

The habitat is intact, we haven't impacted it.

- I often ask people in whatever field, what constitutes success for you five, 10, 20 years from now?

Sounds like you just said something that would.

- Yeah, I would say that.

And probably the core tenet, Steve, of the Raptor Center is that, and it's also not out of a fear, but out of a real deeply seeded desire to train the next generation of ecologists or naturalists that maybe have a real difficult time finding a start is you come right out of an undergrad program in wildlife, it's really hard to get a start.

And the Raptor Center is offering year long internships.

And boy, when you come out of that year, you have something.

I mean, it's the real deal here.

It's not, we're not stuffing envelopes.

We're in the field and we're in educational settings.

We're working with 30 different injured birds every other week in there.

So, the real core was, let's get more graduate students, more PhD students, more volunteers.

We need this desire to train the next generation.

- And they're out there?

- They're out there.

Any of the internship application, he'll get 50, 60 applicants.

So, it's really about the future.

And the Raptor Center started from day one and when the board was established, never about me or us, it was let's create this environment, this campus for the next generation.

- What makes it financially possible and sustainable?

- You know, it's a powerfully philanthropic community of really, really dedicated people who care.

We're also in a national reach.

So, philanthropically, we're in good hands, but we have to really work, work, work, work hard to keep that, to keep the trust in the community.

As you know, any nonprofit is typically doing work that the government or state can't or, you know, doesn't do.

So, we have an obligation to the true public who give us dollars to do this work and to maintain that trust.

We also earn income.

Not many 501(c)(3) nonprofits can say, you know, we can generate income.

- What's an example?

- So we'll take three or four birds into a program and we'll charge a fee for that.

And those fees pay for food, they pay for staff, they pay for keeping the lights on.

We'll submit grants to the state federal agencies.

And so, it's a real combination.

- And we did a show with, at the University of Wyoming with a guy who's developed this really innovative style of vertical farming, and that was his idea as a student.

And, but he said an interesting thing that reminded me of what you just said.

"Finding these great ideas and people with passionate about this task is important, but the really good business people are few and far between."

And to achieve what you've achieved here now, with new facilities, new equipment, bigger staff, bigger success, you needed to have people who can do that part of it too.

And you've gotta be willing to let 'em do it.

- Yep, Steve, you nailed it.

Seriously, this whole project, the Teton Raptor Center really came about from a bunch of really dedicated people, but with the idea that it's always best foot forward.

There was really, truly no ego.

And it was like, we all knew that if this really to become what we were hoping for, it was gonna require skill levels.

I certainly didn't have, I was approaching this as a real, a research biologist and someone who loved birds in the environment ecology.

And I had experience, you know, in the field doing my graduate work.

I'd done maybe 30 programs with a great horned owl, Ali, throughout the community for many, many years.

And was doing medical rehab in my garage and in our house.

We had birds all over the house and in the garage, in the living room.

But I didn't know how to run a business.

And the very best decision I ever made was when and how to get out of the way.

And, boy, I knew Amy, and back when we decided to move into this facility, I would, I had no, really, no business skills and no business being there.

And I knew Amy did, and went to see her, and...

But I would, I will always say that, if an organization, particularly a nonprofit, is really to succeed, it can have, you know, a collect either no ego or a collective ego about what we want, to trust one another and to believe that, allow people to really flourish and shine and grow in their position here.

So, we do talk, Steve, of three pillars at the Raptor Center, education, research, and rehab.

There's a fourth pillar, and that truly is with our executive director, our chief, you know, executive officer is the fourth pillar.

That is a huge component of this.

I couldn't have done it and nor would I have even tried to take it beyond- - And looking back, you wouldn't have wanted to do it without her, I'm guessing.

- Exactly, yeah.

It's a very tight knit team, and... - And she, scientifically, I mean biologically, she's in there talking the talk.

Maybe I can't tell the difference between her and you.

So she's agreat fit for it in that way too.

- Yeah.

So, that's what it's gonna take.

And I think of an internship for a year in the field studying birds.

I see something similar with an internship working with Amy, you know, someone with a more business standpoint that cares about the kind of work we do.

That's something I wish I could have done.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- [Steve] Next week from rescue and recovery to research and rehab, in part two of our show at the Teton Raptor Center.

Join us then on Wyoming Chronicle.

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