When do we say “mission accomplished” at The Raptor Center (TRC)? This question has been 50 years in the making, with no shortage of amazing answers. We feel successful in TRC’s mission of ensuring the health of raptors and the world we share every time one of our 30,000 (and counting) raptor patients has been rehabilitated and released to the wild. Each one of these grand victories sets in motion a domino effect expanding our mission with immense local, regional, and global impact.
At its start in 1974, TRC ventured into uncharted territory to improve the welfare of a group of birds in desperate need of protection. Developing the field of medical and rehabilitative care for raptors quickly provided us with a lens through which raptors’ diminished health, cause of injuries, and behavioral changes revealed the rapid changes in our ecosystem caused, directly or indirectly, by humans. By the end of its second decade of operation, TRC was a leading raptor hospital wielding rich ecosystem health data to help impact positive change, not just nationally, but globally.
Our mission continued to blossom, activating the public to take part in fostering the health of our ecosystem, supporting a network of organizations to save endangered populations, and sharing our clinical expertise with an international audience.
This coming year marks the 50th anniversary of The Raptor Center. Now more than ever, our wild spaces are being encroached upon by human development, ecosystems are changing at a speed faster than wildlife can adapt, and the welfare of our raptors, while improved by some measures, continues to require round-the-clock stewardship.
In preparation for the exciting year ahead, we have taken time to reflect on our humble beginnings, noble work, and the people and birds that have made us who we are today. We see our mission reenergized once more by paving a more equitable path for the next generations to take action to save the health of our ecosystems, guaranteeing the welfare of our raptors. We view this as a responsibility moving forward, one we hope you will share with us.
In this issue, we invite you on a walk down memory lane of TRC’s early impact, sharing our mission successes in raptor medicine, conservation, and public outreach—the three pillars still at the core of our work today. This is the first of three 50th Anniversary Raptor Release editions, over the course of which we aim to take you on a journey into our past, through our present, and into a promising future.
- Victoria Hall, DVM, MS, DACVPM
Executive Director and Redig Endowed Chair
in Raptor and Ecosystem Health