Help Make Room: Inside Raptor Tales Rescue's Push to Expand Its Rehabilitation Spaces

Raptor Tales Rescue of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, is asking the community to help it do something deceptively simple: make room.Photo byRaptor Tales Rescue of Shrewsbury

Raptor Tales Rescue of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, is asking the community to help it do something deceptively simple: make room. As the rescue enters its sixth year, patient admissions keep climbing, and space has become a serious challenge, the organization said in its own appeal.

“Our patients need us — and we need your help,” Raptor Tales wrote in the announcement.

Much of that space is already spoken for, and for months at a time. The rescue is currently overwintering patients, some of which will need seven months or more of rehabilitation while damaged feathers molt and regrow, the slow, patient process that determines whether a bird is healthy enough to be released. New patients keep arriving in the meantime, every day.

Those arrivals come during the hardest stretch of the year. It is trauma season, when many of the animals brought through the rescue’s doors are in critical condition and need intensive care.

“Our rescue has grown tremendously, but our rehabilitation spaces haven’t kept pace,” the rescue said. "We urgently need your help to upgrade and expand our existing spaces so we can continue giving every patient the care and time they need."

The appeal came with a photograph of one of the rescue’s adult red-tailed hawk patients, a bird that will remain long-term because of its injuries. In a way, that bird is the whole argument: not a statistic, but a life that needs somewhere to heal.

Donations can be made through the rescue’s Zeffy donation form at https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/help-raptor-tales-rescue-upgrade-our-rehabilitation-enclosures for the rehabilitation enclosure upgrade, through PayPal, or through Venmo at @ raptortalesrescue. And for anyone who cannot give, Raptor Tales asked for something else instead: “If you cannot donate, please SHARE.”

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