Our story

Oakland, 2001

One day the neighborhood kids brought us a dead opossum with hungry babies crying in her pouch. Looking for someone to take them, we found that Oakland and Berkeley had no wildlife rehabilitation center, and that the nearest one was thirty miles away. We also learned that most of the wild animals brought to the city's animal control facilities were euthanized, because the agencies couldn't spare an officer to make that drive.

So we decided to open a wildlife center local to the animals, and to the children, of Oakland and Berkeley.

The children mattered as much as the animals. Oakland has one of the toughest inner cities in America, and we found that the same kids who came to us from that environment opened up to a baby animal in need in a way that was heart-warming, and that became one of the sustaining rewards of this work. Our hope was that some small fire of compassion, and the belief that their own efforts could make a difference, would be kindled and stay with them. When a young person gets to personally help a creature from the dwindling wild places in and around a city, they learn directly that the solutions to environmental problems are in their own hands.

A center in a house

In August 2002 my husband and I opened the center out of our home: three outdoor enclosures, a private backyard to work in, and two rooms inside for raising babies. From August through December that year we rehabilitated and released 16 animals. We set up a website and a wildlife telephone hotline so people could get their questions answered and report emergencies.

In 2003 we helped 94 animals. In 2004 it was over 150, and the number kept doubling. Until March 2004 we ran the center out of our own pockets, with small donations from grocery stores and local veterinarians. With so many animals coming in and growing interest from local schools, we applied for and were granted state and federal 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.

The hillside

The center quickly outgrew the house. In May 2004 we were offered a rental property that seemed ideal: a third of an acre with a house and a separate infirmary, on a steep hill. We were not scared off. We rallied people, took in donated supplies, and recruited a workforce to terrace the hillside. It was slow going, but thanks to the sweat of many people who believed in the work, and to organizations like Rebuilding Together Oakland and OneBrick, by the summer of 2006 the backyard was terraced and nine large pre-release enclosures were installed for our recovering patients.

San Francisco

Today the center operates from Potrero Hill in San Francisco, with foster homes and release enclosures across the Bay Area. We are still 100% volunteer-run and donation-funded. In 2020 the pandemic shut down our volunteer program and quadrupled intake in the same month; we rebuilt the organization around team coordinators and came out the other side taking in more than 700 animals a year. In 2026 we mark 25 years.

Over those years we have helped thousands of wild animals get a second chance at a normal life, and thousands of children learn to respect and protect the wildlife they share a city with. We hope to keep doing it for years to come. Your support is what makes that possible.