Wildlife Medical Clinic at Illinois

09/06/2025

Did y'all catch a few of our amazing summer interns on last month's CiLiving? Check out clinic intern Emily Blum and ambassador intern Kayla Buck playing some fun wildlife trivia and talking about their experience with the WMC! Great job on the big screen 🤩

What It’s Like Being an Intern at the Wildlife Medical Clinic Champaign, Ill. (WCIA)–Watch the video above! Here is a link to their website

09/05/2025

We have some sad news to share with you all. It is with heavy hearts and great sadness that we must announce the recent passing of two of our resident ambassador animals.

Our resident Barred Owl (Strix varia), Vara was humanely euthanized on Tuesday, August 19th, 2025. She had an old fracture in her right wing and despite our best efforts, we could not manage pain associated with this injury. She chronically overgroomed that wing to the point that it prohibited her from flying. Because of this, we saw increased anxiety with her and an overall decline in her quality of life. After thorough monitoring and many discussions, WMC staff and ambassador coordinators made the difficult decision to humanely euthanize Vara. Vara was a staple of the University of Illinois CVM Wildlife Medical Clinic Ambassador team, and she will be greatly missed.

Our resident Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana), Petunia, was humanely euthanized on September 3, 2025. The difficult decision was made to humanely euthanize her due to her increasing age and declining health. While opossums in the wild rarely live more than two years, 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 making many friends along the way. We at the WMC are grateful for the time we had with Petunia, and her absence will strongly be felt by all that had the pleasure of meeting her and working with her.

These two ambassador animals have made a profound impact on our care team and the community at-large. We will carry Vara and Petunia in our hearts forever 💕

09/03/2025

⌛️ That’s time, folks! ⌛️ was your guess an Eastern Fox Squirrel? This little guy is extra unique because he’s of the melanistic (black fur) variety! Black squirrels are far less common than the typical gray-appearing squirrel in our region, but that’s not true everywhere! They are the predominant color morph in parts of Michigan, and relatively more common throughout the Great Lakes region than elsewhere in the country. If you see them roaming about, definitely stop to admire their beautiful coat!

09/03/2025

What’s your guess for this little creature? 🧐 let us know in the comments, and check back on our page at 5pm for the answer!

08/28/2025

We would like to thank BankChampaign for their recent donation to the Wildlife Medical Clinic! BankChampaign lets employees nominate and vote on non-profits in the community to donate to each month, and we were selected as the recipients for August. We, along with a few of our resident ambassador animals, had the pleasure of meeting with some of their staff to personally thank them for their generous donation and answers any questions they had about the Wildlife Medical Clinic.

Thanks again to BankChampaign, we appreciate your support of the Wildlife Medical Clinic! 🦉🦅🐢🦝

08/27/2025

THAT’S TIME! Was your guess the American Redstart? We recently saw this little friend in the clinic for a possible windowstrike. After evaluation and an overnight stay in our clinic, we determined that he was healthy for release! Fly far, little one!

08/27/2025

Hey all you bird lovers out there! Can you guess this ? Check back at 5pm on our page for the answer! 🤔❓

08/22/2025

Did you know that birds molt, or shed and replace their feathers, only one to two times a year? Since this doesn’t happen often, they need to make sure they take good care of the feathers they have! They can do this by preening (using their beaks to clean feathers), taking baths in water or dust, and by showering themselves when it rains - or in the case of our ambassadors, in the mist from the hose!

Featured below is River, our bald eagle, who loves to take baths in her pool.

08/21/2025

This week’s is about Ruby, our female red-tailed hawk.

You might remember reading about her a few weeks back! At the beginning of summer, she suffered an injury to her left wing which left her unable to fly properly. She was placed on two pain medications, Meloxicam and Gabapentin, and at the time of our last post, she just started training again. Since then, she has been decreased to only one pain medication daily and her flying has been improving! We have been working on increasing her training sessions and are continuing to monitor her wing to ensure she doesn’t regress or re-injure it.

You may notice in the video that Ruby has a line attached to her. This is called a creance and is used while we fly our raptors to keep them safe and prevent them from flying anywhere except for their target. It is a long cord attached to a weight on one end and Ruby's equipment on the other end.

All of our ambassador animals are worked with and monitored daily as well as receive veterinary care, not only for injuries and illnesses but for routine preventative care too!

08/20/2025

🛎DING, DING, DING!🛎
⌛Time is up!

For , if you guessed Petunia, the Virginia Opossum, you are correct!

Petunia has been an ambassador since 2022 after she and her siblings were brought into the WMC when their mom was hit by a car. On triage, it was noted that she has an underdeveloped left eye. Due to the defect, she was kept as an ambassador animal to help us educate the community on opossums. Her siblings were transferred to a wildlife rehabilitator and were later released!

08/20/2025

❓ ❓

Can you guess which ambassador is pictured below?

Come back at 5pm to see if you guessed correctly!

08/18/2025

🌟 🌟

This week, we would like to introduce Dr. Wunderlich! She is currently in the WMC completing a zoological medicine internship which is needed to get to her goal of becoming board-certified in zoological medicine. Before coming to the University of Illinois, Dr. Wunderlich attended veterinary school at Tufts University and then completed a small animal, large animal, and zoo medicine internship at the University of Florida.

Dr. Wunderlich was drawn to the WMC and this program because of the people she met here and she felt that the learning environment and team are a great fit that will help support her goals. She has also been excited about the diversity of patients that she will encounter on this internship like wildlife, zoo animals, and exotic pets. Dr. Wunderlich is most excited to retain that diversity in practicing medicine along with helping to contribute to conservation and helping to better the lives of zoo animals that are in managed care for the rest of her career!

We are beyond excited to have Dr. Wunderlich here at UIUC as part of our team!