A Year at von Arx Wildlife Hospital

The von Arx Wildlife Hospital at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida rescues, rehabs, and releases native wildlife daily throughout the year. The staff works to rehabilitate sick, injured, and orphaned animals. The wildlife hospital is open 365 days a year from 8a.m. to 6p.m. Forwildlifeassistance,pleasecall239-262-2273. 

This year, the von Arx Wildlife Hospital admitted 3,828 animals. It was quite an eventful year, with more than 300 more animals than last year. The wildlife hospital also admitted multiple rare animals our team doesn’toften see, including bobcats, Bonaparte’s gull, brown booby, fulvous whistling duck, hooded warbler, peregrine falcon, and a glass lizard. See a recap of the 2024 wildlife patients at the Conservancy of Southwest Florida website: conservancy.org/wildlife-alphabet-2024-admissions. 

The year began on a seemingly ordinary note but concluded with a series of impactful back-to-back hurricanes. Milton and Helene brought in many injured, orphaned, and/or sick animals. Thankfully, the campus fared well; however, wildlife admissions poured in after each storm passed. The wildlife hospital received 77 patients post-Hurricane Helene and 137 after Milton. These added storms increased our admission numbers towards the end of the year. 

“Although we weathered the storm season pretty well as a campus, the wildlife in the area experienced quite an impact. Many animals were brought in after the storms because of exhaustion, injuries, and from being orphaned,” states Lauren Barkley, the von Arx Wildlife Hospital’s manager.  

 Along with the impact of the hurricanes, most of the animals admitted to the wildlife hospital were because of human-related causes. The loss of land and increased development is causing more interactions between humans and wildlife. An interesting fact about the data this year is that the top reason for most of the wildlife admissions were vehicle strikes and cat/dog attacks. In total, 584 animals were admitted due to being hit by a car, and 358 animals were admitted due to dog and cat attacks. A few other common causes of admissions were orphaned wildlife for 243 animals, 103 patients struck a window, and 152 animals were brought into the hospital because of some type of human interference. 

Out of the 3,828 wildlife patients, 1,566 were mammals. Eastern cottontails were the number one mammal admission at 709 patients.  

The wildlife hospital admitted 2,005 birds of all kinds, including eastern screech owls, gray kingbirds, brown pelicans, and more. Mourning doves were the most common bird admission, with 271 admits.  

This year, 257 reptiles were admitted. Gopher tortoises were the top reptile admissions with 87 patients. 

Although the numbers seem high, the wildlife hospital worked tirelessly to save as many wildlife patients as possible, eventually successfully releasing the animals back into the wild.  

As you set your New Year’s resolutions for 2025, we encourage you to include protecting the native wildlife in our area. Being good stewards of our environment can be supervising your pets while outsideor always following the speed limit and being on the lookout for wildlife on the roads. If you find an injured animal, please call 239-262-2273 for wildlife assistance. 

If you want to try something new this new year, we recommend volunteering at the Conservancy. By volunteering, you can meet like-minded people and work to help our mission.