It would be an apt description to say that the Wildlife Care Center Program was the illegitimate child of the Audubon Society of Portland. Its birth was neither deliberate nor planned and its acceptance into the family of Audubon programs was slow in coming and tempered by lingering questions as to why it was here and whether it belonged. The program survived because of the phenomenal commitment of generations of volunteers. It flourished because of an evolving understanding of how fixing individual injured wild animals ultimately serves to protect and preserve our natural ecosystems.

It all began innocently enough. Back in the late 1930's, long before the term "wildlife rehabilitation" even existed, Henrietta Eliot, wife of Audubon President Willard Ayres Eliot, began accepting injured wildlife and caring for them in her home. Board member emeritus Dave Marshall recalls two common nighthawks that passed a winter perched (one on each end) of Mrs. Eliot's hearth prior to their release the following spring. What began as a hobby quickly found its way into the Audubon Society of Portland Annual Reports. The report of 1944, written by Mrs. Eliot, reveals that in many ways rehab in 1944 sounds remarkably like rehab in 2002:

The Bird Clinic cared for 52 birds including 16 species. Of these 28 were liberated and 24 died...Some were nestlings that needed careful raising but many were badly injured, and some with only one wing, cats having amputated the other. Altogether Mrs. Eliot had a very busy summer. It took most of her "spare" time and often got her out of bed in the wee small hours of the morning to get the babies and cripples cared for. The results have been noted in much increased interest in the sanctuary by those who brought in birds, and in many memberships.

In the late 1940s the Eliots departed for the east coast and the rehab program went dormant for a period of more than two decades, save for a period in the late 1960s when, at the community's request, Audubon reluctantly agreed to provide euthanasia services for injured wild animals when no other alternative was available.

The second coming of wildlife rehabilitation to Audubon Society of Portland occurred in 1977. Two local rehabbers, Scotty Steeves and Joe Schables, brought together a coalition of Audubon Society of Portland, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Washington Park Zoo to establish Portland's first wildlife rehabilitation center. Many among the Audubon community voiced strong opposition, fearing that a rehabilitation program would consume limited resources and do little to ultimately protect wildlife. Despite these concerns, Audubon Society of Portland agreed to house the center in an old, rat-infested caretaker's shack under the condition that the center be financially self-sustaining (first achieved 20 years later) and that each of the coalition members share equally in the cost (we are still waiting).

In its first year of existence, the center accepted 372 animals for care, a number that would jump to 900 by 1982, 3,000 by 1988 and would creep toward 4,000 by the turn of the century. Our longest serving resident, Owen the Barn Owl, arrived in 1978. Taken from her nest and raised by humans, Owen arrived far too imprinted to survive in the wild. She quickly took up residence on a perch above the Care Center refrigerator and became our first education animal. Mistakenly believed to be a male on arrival, Owen revealed her true identity several years later when she laid an egg.

During the first three years of its existence, the Care Center was run almost entirely by volunteers and volunteers remain the backbone of this facility to this day. In 1982, Susan Flett-Pomeroy, the Care Center's longest serving volunteer (20 years and counting!) worked her first shift. The Care Center struggled with lack of space and lack of funds, and Susan still tells stories of the sandwich man stopping by in the evening to drop off stale,day-old sandwiches to be used to feed recovering crows.

The Care Center hired its first full-time director, Stephanie Struthers, in 1980 and she was succeeded by Jonelyn Wilson in 1982. Also in 1982, and five years after its creation, Audubon Society of Portland formally recognized the Care Center as a permanent department of the Society. During this year, fundraising also began to replace the dilapidated shack with a new state-of-the-art "Tweetment Center" (a term that later Director Katy Weil would make her first task to eliminate because of her belief that "state-of-the-art" and "tweetment" were incompatible).

Construction on the current facility began in 1985, made possible by extensive fundraising efforts of volunteers and the generous donation of time by general contractor Robert Evans. Originally conceived as a functional, warehouse- like building, plans were ultimately changed to provide for a homier, house-like atmosphere. Two explanations persist. The first is that the staff and volunteers wanted to maintain the family-like atmosphere that pervades the Care Center. The second was that certain board members persisted in the belief that the Care Center would ultimately fade away and they wanted a structure that could quickly be converted to classrooms. Construction was delayed for extended periods because of lack of funds and in the interim the Care Center operated out of a trailer. In August of 1986 the new Care Center opened and Owen the Barn Owl was moved into a specially built cage complete with barn and heated perches. Also in 1986, Maureen O'Mara succeeded Jonelyn as Director.

Always integral to the operation of the Care Center has been the willingness of the Portland veterinary community to donate services and expertise. In 1988 future Audubon Society of Portland President Dr. Marli Lintner, owner of the Avian Medical Center, "A Veterinary Clinic Just For Birds," took us under her wing after Maureen showed up unannounced on her doorstep with an injured beaver. She remains one of too many vets to name here without whom our work would be impossible.

In 1990 the longstanding tension over our existence came to a head and a large task force was convened to formally evaluate the role of wildlife rehabilitation within the context of Audubon's overall conservation efforts. Less a question of whether wildlife rehabilitation ought to be done, than a question of whether a conservation organization such as Audubon Society of Portland was the appropriate agency to do it, the committee was charged with deciding the fate of the program. A vigorous debate ensued.

The report accepted by the board in March, 1991, validated the place of the Care Center within Audubon Society of Portland and set the tone for the years to come. Beyond recognizing the intrinsic moral value in caring for injured wildlife, it clearly articulated the unique educational opportunity that each injured animal brings with it. The mission of the Care Center was expanded to include not just fixing critters, but working with individuals, agencies, neighborhoods and communities to reduce and prevent the problems that bring animals to us. The care of each injured animal is not only an end in itself, but also a link to a community. The rehabilitation process became something of a bargain: "We will fix the critter, but you need to fix the problem that caused it to become injured." During the 1990s, under the leadership first of Katy Weil and later Bob Sallinger and Gary Slone, the efforts of the Care Center expanded beyond the boundaries of its hospital walls and eventually evolved into something of a "yin" to our Urban Conservation program's "yang." Audubon's highly successful efforts to protect urban wildlife habitat necessitated a "next step:" teaching people how to live with the wildlife that share the urban landscape. The Care Center, with its daily view of the carnage that ensues when people fail to appreciate, understand and accommodate the wildlife that surrounds them, was uniquely situated to step into this role.

So what have we accomplished? Since we began our rehabilitation efforts, more than 65,000 animals have been treated for release back to the wild and we have answered more than a quarter of a million wildliferelated phone calls. At a more fundamental level, with every animal we treat we answer the question "How does caring for individual animals serve to protect the greater ecosystem?"