Innovation in our Wildlife Hospital

I manage the Wildlife Hospital at World Bird Sanctuary.  I have big ideas with whatever I do, and I'm always trying to find a better way of doing things.  Sometimes these ideas fly.  Sometimes they crash.

The latest 'invention' is a better Cooper's Hawk cage for Cooper's Hawks that come into our Wildlife Hospital for treatment.  For whatever reason, Cooper's Hawks are very jumpy birds.  They hunt other birds, so they have to be fast.  This spills over to their behavior when they are in the Wildlife Hospital - they jump around the cage, and are difficult to catch up to administer medication or perform physical therapy.  Their movement in the cage can further damage a broken wing or injured leg.

Sanctuary Manager, Joe Hoffmann, and Volunteer, Sue Owens, handfeeding a Cooper's Hawk.

When a Cooper's Hawk breaks a wing or is injured in some other way, they may be in our clinic for 6-8 weeks.  Injuries barely slow them down!  When staff and volunteers scrap (remove old food from the cages), clean cages or place food in the cage, the hawks dart by and can be a challenge to catch in the maze of rooms inside the hospital.

Our staff and volunteers have been innovative over the years, trying to find a better holding stall for Cooper's Hawks, which will allow the rehabber access to the cage and the bird, without enabling an escape!  We think we've found a pretty good solution!  We've developed a cage which allows us to put just our (gloved) hand in the cage to place food and remove scraps, or to catch the hawk before the cage is opened.  Two arm holes in a front-raising door allow the rehabber to access the hawk in the cage.  Once the rehabber has control of the bird, a counterweight system opens the door fully so that the hawk can be removed from the cage without injury to the bird or the rehabber.

The cage has two openings that allow the rehabber to reach into the cage without it being fully opened.

Once the rehabber has control of the hawk, the cage can be fully opened to take it out of the cage.

Like any new idea, we have some kinks to work out, but look at our pictures and let us know what you think.

If you are, or know of, an aspiring engineer who can help us to resolve some of the unique challenges we face, we'd love to hear from you at 636-861-1392.  We can chat about what we need, and you can volunteer your problem-solving skills to help us continue to find better ways of improving how we do things! 

Submitted by Joe Hoffmann, Sanctuary Manager, World Bird Sanctuary