CiLiving recently visited the Wildlife Medical Clinic and chatted with WMC Program Coordinator, Sydney Oliveira, about the clinic’s new education classroom and programs offered in this new space.
If you are interested in scheduling an ambassador program, go to the WMC website and fill out the request a visit form.
In the fall of 2025, the Wildlife Medical Clinic (WMC) ambassador program grew with the addition of a red-tailed hawk, a Virginia opossum, and an Eastern Screech Owl. While you may have seen short clips of these ambassadors on CiLiving and through our social media platforms, we would like to formally introduce our newest trio of animals.
Loki is the latest red-tailed hawk to join the WMC Ambassador team, starting his tenure with us in May of 2025 at 2 years of age. Loki initially arrived at another wildlife rehabilitation facility and then was transferred to a licensed falconer to be conditioned for release. The falconer had Loki ready for release but noticed he was not hunting well and suspected he had an issue with his vision. Due to this, Loki was transferred to the WMC for evaluation, where we discovered a cataract and significant scarring in the back of his left eye, likely from trauma sustained while he was living in the wild. His vision is severely impaired on that side, and it would be very difficult for him to hunt in the wild. Instead, we have continued his training that was started by the falconer and have integrated Loki into our ambassador program. His name was chosen by our Ambassador Care Coordinator student volunteers to match that of our other male red-tailed hawk, Odin. Loki and Odin are both very prominent gods in Norse mythology.
Loki’s experience with a falconer is not uncommon for red-tailed hawks. Falconry is a form of hunting, where humans train and partner with a bird of prey to hunt wild game in the birds natural habitat. This sport is highly regulated and is a cooperative relationship built on trust where the bird retains its wild instincts while working alongside a human partner. The process of becoming a falconer takes years and requires an individual apprenticeship to a sponsor; after obtaining the required permits and passing an exam, most beginner falconers in the U.S. use a red-tailed hawk as their starter bird. These animals are less than a year old and wild-caught. In the wild, yearling red-tailed hawks face many challenges including starvation due to poor hunting success, rodenticide toxicity after eating poisoned mice or rats, trauma from hitting a car, window, or other object, and even electrocution. In fact, it is thought that anywhere from 60-80% of red-tailed hawks do not survive their first year of life. For the red-tailed hawks that are caught and work with a falconer, they receive critical assistance during the most vulnerable time in their life and are released as an adult in optimal physical health and have perfected hunting techniques, greatly increasing their survival rate.
While Loki’s vision deficits keep him from being able to return to the wild, he is still able to engage in plenty of natural hawk behavior. With no damage to his bones or feathers, he is fully flighted and will often spend part of his day swooping from one perch to the next in his outdoor enclosure. On days when the weather allows, we are also able to creance him, using a long weighted line, he is able to fly longer distances from one trainer to another or from a trainer to a perch keeping him in great body condition. This also gives Loki a chance to stretch his wings, and a chance for all of us to appreciate his talent. Perhaps you will have a chance to see him fly at an upcoming program!
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On September 2, 2025, a passel (litter) of baby opossums was brought into the Wildlife Medical Clinic. Their mother had been hit by a car and unfortunately passed away leaving Pesto and his siblings orphaned. While the majority of the young were perfectly healthy, Pesto’s tail had gotten caught, and was barely hanging on by a thread. Our team determined the tail could not be re-attached, and was amputated, fully removing the tail at its base. Pesto was prescribed pain medication, and he along with his siblings were set up in a small incubator and started on several feedings per day.
The tail of the Virginia opossum is hairless and prehensile, meaning it can grab and carry objects. When they are young, joeys (baby opossums) can occasionally hang by their tails, but as they grow up they become too heavy for such behavior. Opossums use their tails to carry nesting material, like fallen leaves, or to balance while they are climbing trees and suburban fencing. The tail is integral to how the opossum behaves in the wild, and as such, losing the entirety of it disqualified Pesto from being a candidate for release. Instead, he was accepted into our ambassador program as our newest opossum member, and he was fully hand raised and habituated to people to ensure he would thrive as an ambassador animal.
Pesto was housed in the WMC for the first few months of his life, where he received multiple formula feedings each day before being transitioned onto more solid foods like veggies, fruits, yogurt, and kibble. At this point, he moved out of the clinic and into his permanent enclosure within the ambassador building, where our volunteers were very excited to work with him more closely. At first he was restricted to a small portion of his enclosure but as he grew, he was given more space until he had full access to his room. Having never had a tail that he could remember, Pesto is still able to move around his enclosure freely, and does still climb very well. His name was chosen by popular vote by members of both the WMC and the ambassador volunteer team, since it took everyone’s combined efforts to take care of him in his infancy.
Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana) are the only marsupial species found in North America (North of Mexico). Females will give birth to up to 13 underdeveloped young that then migrate to a specialized pouch on their body, where they continue to grow and nurse until they are large enough to go off on their own. They have very few defenses beyond their impressive set of teeth (50 in total), and instead will “play dead” when they feel trapped, in an effort to make the predator lose interest. Opossums are omnivorous opportunistic feeders, and are primarily nocturnal. While many regard them as pests, they play an important role in disease control within their habits, scavenging what’s been left behind, be it a deer carcass or a discarded sandwich. Pesto travels to many of our ambassador program events to help demystify these animals, and to show how important these misunderstood creatures are in the environment.
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The newest Strigiforme to join the ambassador program is Whittington, an Eastern Screech Owl! Fully grown at 115 grams (¼ of a pound), Whitt was brought to us by the Illinois Raptor Center in Decatur, Illinois, as a month-old fledgling. They were concerned that he had an injured wing and eye. After examining him, we discovered chronic fractures spanning the length of his left wing. We have no way of knowing what caused this degree of trauma in such a young owl, but his body was able to heal and Whitt can still take short flights without issue. When examining his eyes, our team found an immature cataract in the right (meaning his vision is likely cloudy but still present) and a pupil that was not responsive to light in the left. We suspect the left eye is a case of microphthalmia, in which the eye did not develop properly before hatching; he likely cannot see much of anything on that side.
Whittington was found but then held for over a week before he was brought to a licensed rehabilitator. Unless you are a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, it is illegal to keep wildlife in your home for an extended period of time. Many species of baby birds imprint quickly on humans who handle them, which renders them incapable of release because they do not recognize other members of their species as “self.” Imprinted animals will rely on humans for everything, including food, shelter, and once mature, even seeing humans as their mate. They have no fear of people and never learn species-specific behaviors that would allow them to survive in the wild. Unless the animal has a temperament suitable for an educational program, it can be very challenging to find them a home. Luckily for Whitt, we were able to add him to our ambassador program, where we hope he will spend many years with us helping demonstrate to the public the importance of keeping animals wild.
Eastern Screech Owls (Megascops asio) are native to the majority of the U.S., east of the Rocky Mountains. They are nocturnal, non-migratory, and tend to live in deciduous, wooded areas where they can camouflage into the trees. They eat small mammals, birds, and all sorts of insects. Males typically are smaller than their female counterparts, but both sexes stand between 6 and 10 inches tall. The oldest recorded Eastern Screech Owl in the wild was fourteen and a half years old. Whittington is a gray phase Eastern Screech Owl, but there are two less common morphs, the rufous or red phase and intermediate or brown phase.
Whittington’s name was selected by a generous donor, who chose to name him after Dr. Julia Whittington. Dr. Whittington was the Director of the WMC for 16 years, before the mantle was passed to Dr. Sam Sander and then to our current Director, Dr. Stephany Lewis. Dr. Whittington is a 1997 graduate from the University of Illinois’ College of Veterinary Medicine. After practicing locally for a few years, she returned to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to develop the College of Veterinary Medicine’s exotic “zoo med” service, and expand student access to wildlife experiences. She led the WMC from 2001 through 2017, before accepting a position as the Director of the Veterinary Teaching Hospital and Assistant Dean of Clinical Services. Though she retired at the end of 2023, she has stayed local and still keeps in touch with our zoo med and wildlife services. We hope she is excited to have one of our ambassadors named in her honor.
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Written By: Lydia T., Class of 2027
Watch as WMC Program Coordinator, Sydney Oliveira, and ambassador Virginia Opossum, Pesto, visit CiLiving. Pesto makes a return visit to CiLiving to show how much he has grown since the fall and to talk about how he is doing in our ambassador program.
On February 5, 2026, a juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk presented to the Wildlife Medical Clinic emaciated and with a depressed mentation, not able to hold itself up or stand properly. Due to the clinical signs at the initial exam, we placed an intraosseous catheter – this means it was placed directly into a bone in the patient’s wing. This allowed us to give the patient fluids to help stabilize the patient. Placing catheters in blood vessels in birds is not always feasible or safe; however, placing a catheter in the bone allows for quick, easy vascular access, and decreases risks with catheters in blood vessels (pulling out the catheters in the vessels can lead to significant bleeding). Through the intraosseous catheter, we began fluids and supplemented them with potassium and dextrose. Birds in the emaciated condition this patient was in have not eaten enough in a long time and therefore have no glucose for energy metabolism. This patient was confirmed to have low blood sugar which we corrected with dextrose (sugar) supplementation. The potassium was supplemented as that electrolyte is also decreased due to muscle wasting and lack of intake from the prolonged malnutrition.
At the initial exam while fluids were being given, we took a blood sample to assess the patient’s anemia and protein levels. The packed cell volume (red blood cell count) was 14% (normal 30-45%) indicating anemia and the total solids level (which is similar to protein levels) was 0.4 mg/dL (normal 4-6 mg/dL). The total solids that low indicated how critical this patient was. We also ran a blood chemistry to assess electrolytes to determine if there were other abnormalities we needed to correct. Due to the severity of the anemia (low red blood cell count) and the absence of protein in the blood (hypoproteinemia) it was decided to do an emergency blood transfusion the same evening to give the patient a chance to survive overnight.
Our ambassador animals serve many functions, including the education of volunteers, students, and the public through our educational events. An additional benefit to having
ambassador animals is that they can serve as a healthy population of species we also see in the Wildlife Medical Clinic. Therefore, if a patient needs an emergent blood transfusion as this
patient was, we were able to have our ambassador Red Tailed Hawk, Ruby, donate blood. With the training work we have done with Ruby, we were able to quickly collect blood for the donation in a low-stress way that was based on an established training relationship. Ruby recovered well from her blood donation procedure. If we did not have ambassador animals to serve as blood donors, then locating a donor for the blood transfusion may have taken longer and may not have been a direct species match to our patient, potentially affecting patient outcome.
The patient received the blood donation and more fluids that evening of presentation. Towards the end of the transfusion the patient was able to hold just their head up and was picking at the catheter, so we placed a hood to decrease visual stimuli and finish the infusion. We had a guarded prognosis overnight due to the severity of the hypoproteinemia and anemia.However, the patient survived the night! We continued fluids the next day and the patient was able to stand on their own. With the improved mentation we placed the hood over the patients’ eyes again to ensure the catheter would stay in place for the duration of the fluids. We offered skinned mice to see if the patient would eat and the patient had an appetite. We discontinued fluids in the catheter at the end of the day and removed it (February 6th). We continued the next few days to run additional diagnostics, give supplemental fluids, and slowly feed increasing amounts of food. We found that this patient also had a very small chronic retinal lesion in the left eye (unlikely to impact vision) and internal GI parasites. The radiographs (X-rays) we took were normal and we found no fractures. We started the patient on a preventative anti-fungal medication and addressed the parasites. Young raptors are more susceptible to fungal infection and risks increase when indoors.
On February 12th we repeated bloodwork which showed an increase in the PCV to 29%
(red blood cell count) which was a positive trend, and total solids to 4.4 indicating a little over a
10-fold increase in total solids from intake! The patient has continued to gain weight and
improve clinical signs. We will continue to rehabilitate and treat this red-tailed hawk until they
are able to be transferred to one of our wildlife rehabilitation partners for reconditioning for
release. Due to the ability to give an emergent blood transfusion from our healthy ambassador
animals, this patient was able to survive from an extremely critical condition. Even with the
emergency blood transfusion this patient has survived against the odds stacked against it. This
case is unique and highlights the medical benefits of having healthy ambassador animals that
can possibly save lives, just like Ruby did with this patient.
Written by: Roxanne L., Class of 2027
Join Program Coordinator, Sydney Oliveira, and Dr. Macy Peterson, on CiLiving as they introduce us to one of the newest avian ambassadors, Loki, the Red-Tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis).
Join Program Coordinator, Sydney Oliveira, on CiLiving as she introduces us to one of the newest avian ambassadors, Whittington, the Eastern Screech Owl (Megascops asio). Interested in some fun facts about owls, check out her second segment on CiLiving to learn more.
Check out our recent visit to CiLiving where Wildlife Medical Clinic Director, Dr. Stephany Lewis, DVM, CWR, DABVP (Avian Practice) goes over some unique giving opportunities that the clinic has to offer. Some of these opportunities such as our Adopt an Ambassador program, our Sponsor a Day, and our 2026 Wildlife Medical Clinic Calendar make excellent gifts, especially with the upcoming holidays. Not only does the recipient of the gift get some very unique items but the money donated to the clinic goes directly towards the care and medical treatment of our current wildlife patients and resident ambassador animals.
Sydney Oliveira, WMC Program Coordinator, and Roxanne Lisowsky, Wildlife Ambassador Care Coordinator and DVM candidate 2027 talk about scavengers. They also introduce us to the Wildlife Medical Clinic’s newest ambassador animal, a young male Virginia Opossum.
We recently made the difficult decision to humanely euthanize Petunia, our resident Virginia opossum. Petunia was a huge part of our ambassador program at the Wildlife Medical Clinic, and she will be greatly missed.
Petunia’s journey with us started when she arrived at the Wildlife Medical Clinic from Champaign, Illinois, on May 18, 2022, as a joey (baby). A good Samaritan rescued her and her siblings after their mother was hit by a car. While her siblings were able to be transferred to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator to be released, Petunia stayed behind because she was smaller than her siblings and was missing her left eye. Based on her age, her missing eye was most likely a birth defect, not an injury; however, it left her vulnerable to predation and affected her depth perception, making her unlikely to survive in the wild. Petunia became one of our Wildlife Ambassadors to help educate the community about North America’s only native marsupial, the Virginia opossum.
At the Wildlife Medical Clinic, she was initially fed several times a day with formula, then transitioned onto solid food when she was old enough, all while being acclimated to spending time around humans. Petunia’s care team worked with her daily to ensure she was comfortable with her training and basic behaviors such as standing on the scale for weighing, wearing a harness and leash for programs, and some handling for veterinary checks and routine nail trims. Petunia was very comfortable at outreach events and did an excellent job of representing her wild counterparts and showing the importance of opossums in the environment.
In the summer of 2024, volunteers noticed Petunia was losing hair on her flanks and seemed to have developed a rash. After consulting with the University of Illinois Dermatology service, we determined she was likely suffering from allergic dermatitis and a secondary skin infection. While treating the infection was relatively straightforward through antibiotics, there were no existing recommendations on how to treat an opossum with allergies. In close concert with dermatology, we were able to determine the correct medical management plan for her remaining years. This plan allowed her to be comfortable and continue living her busy life as an ambassador animal.
While opossums in the wild rarely live more than two years, May 2025 marked her third year in our ambassador program. At this point, we had begun to see some early signs of arthritis, which is a common complication in aging opossums. After consulting with the Anesthesia service at the University of Illinois, we started her on additional medications and cold light laser therapy to slow this process. Unfortunately, by mid-summer, Petunia began experiencing significant reduction in her mobility and overall quality of life. She also started to develop an ulcer on her remaining eye; we sought advice from our Ophthalmology service to help determine treatment. All of these health concerns, and their progression led us to the difficult decision of humane euthanasia.
Petunia had a long and happy three and a half years with us where she had the pleasure of educating the public about her species and helping dispel common myths associated with Virginia opossums. She connected with many people along the way, from those that were able to see her on a program, to the dedicated faculty, staff, and students that collaborated to care for her. Petunia showed us how awesome opossums can be and how important they are in the environment. We at the WMC are grateful for the time we had with Petunia and all that she taught us. Her absence in the ambassador building is felt by all.
Written By: Current Wildlife Ambassador Care Coordinators, Lydia, Roxanne, Christie, and Kat.
Several weeks ago, we made the difficult decision to humanely euthanize our resident barred owl, Vara. This decision came about due to an overall decline in her quality of life. Although Vara did not travel for ambassador programs, she could be seen outside during cool summer evenings, her favorite time of day. She was loved by many and will be missed greatly.
Vara came to us in March 2017 through the Wildlife Medical Clinic. She was found in Tuscola, Illinois, unable to fly. After medical tests, it was determined that she had an old fracture near the shoulder. Due to the proximity to the joint and the age of the injury, she was not a candidate for surgery. She was sent to a local raptor facility to be flight tested, as she appeared to be non-painful and otherwise healthy. Vara was returned after being deemed non-flighted and therefore non-releasable.
Due to her unusually calm and docile personality, we brought Vara into the ambassador program, where she served to educate members of the public on owl behavior and wildlife conservation in general. She got her name from the scientific name of barred owl, Strix varia. As our only resident owl for many years, she was adored by the public and contributed to the public’s education by “donating” owl pellets for people to dissect through the Wildlife Medical Clinic’s owl pellet kits. If you had owl pellets over the last few years, there is a good chance that you were combing through Vara’s dinner!
Her small team of trainers were committed to ensuring that she always felt comfortable and secure. While she chose only a few people to build closer relationships with, she was still a loved ambassador by the entire team. One of the best relationships she had was with Jacob Dalen, a previous ambassador care coordinator, who trained with her regularly during his time in the program. Vara and Jacob were the best of friends and had a tight bond.
Vara was the best listener and would always be invested in what she was being talked to about, whether it was about what our volunteers were studying or about their day. Vara had her own routine and her favorite dinner spot inside where she liked to hang out. She loved to perch in one of the boxes outside and look out at visitors from her second favorite spot. Vara was a dignified owl who made a lasting impression on all who worked with her. We hold a special place in our hearts and memories for her.
As she grew older, Vara’s behavior changed and indicated that her wing injury had become painful. Despite our best efforts, we could not manage the pain associated with this injury. She chronically overgroomed that wing to the point that it prevented her from flying. Because of this, we saw increased anxiety in her and a cumulative decline in her quality of life. After close monitoring and many discussions, the WMC faculty, staff, and ambassador coordinators made the difficult decision to humanely euthanize Vara. She will be greatly missed by the Ambassador team and all that knew her.
Written By: Current Wildlife Ambassador Coordinators, Lydia, Roxanne, Christie, and Kat.