Think of it as an emergency room for wild animals.

The Wildlife Care Clinic is located in the College of Veterinary Medicine, in two rooms donated by the college. The clinic is not an official part of the college or even the university. It is a nonprofit organization, which is funded entirely by private donations and private endowments, and was created for the care of abandoned wildlife.

The clinic was started in 1984 as part of a club for wildlife and split in the late ’80s to become its own separate clinic. During the winter, there are not many animals that come in, but in the spring and summer months, the counters in one of the two small rooms are usually filled with incubators holding orphaned squirrels, rabbits and birds.

“We bring in about 700 animals a year to rehabilitate with the goal of releasing them back out into the wild,” said Lauren Zeman, senior in animal ecology and staff member at the clinic.

The clinic has just five paid staff members, but also has several volunteers and three doctors to help out.

“The staff members are the lifeblood of this clinic,” said Linda Kauffman, clinician at the veterinary teaching hospital. “They’re the ones that come in at 2 o’clock in the morning to pick up the baby squirrel that somebody found along the road or whatever and they’re the ones in here doing nighttime feeding on all the orphans.”

Kauffman is one of three doctors who help out at the clinic. Kauffman advises the clinic’s employees along with Kim Langholz, clinician of veterinary clinical sciences, and Mary Nieves, associate professor of veterinary microbiology and preventative medicine. Nieves is the orthopedic surgeon for the clinic.

The staff members and volunteers take care of treatments and care for the wildlife that is brought in.

“We do a majority of the work,” said Cory Janssen, senior in biology and staff member at the clinic. “We are actually the ones doing the treatments on them.”

The clinic takes in most common forms of wildlife, except for skunks and raccoons, to rehabilitate them and release them. The clinic doesn’t take skunks because they are messy and smelly and doesn’t take raccoons because they excrete parasites other animals can catch, Janssen said.

Anyone can bring an animal in or call the clinic’s number. Since the clinic is donation-based, the person who brought the animal in can choose to pay $15 to “adopt” the animal, which allows them to get updates on the progress and to be present at the time of release.

“This is all private donations,” Janssen said. “[There’s] a fee that we charge for the programs, but it goes into our donations.”

The programs Janssen refers to are public education programs that take place in schools, at fairs and Girl Scout events. At the programs, the clinic displays its few permanent animals who could not survive in the wild on their own after treatment.

At a function at the Hy-Vee, 3800 Lincoln Way, on Oct. 28, a small screech owl and a great horned owl were both on display for one of these programs.

A turkey vulture that was perched on leather gloves of a staff member drew attention from shoppers as they went about their business.

They do about 40 to 50 programs a year, Zeman said.

“Not a lot of people know about us, this is why we come out,” Zeman said. “This is our yearly fundraiser and we try to get somewhere that a lot of people will see us and that we can kind of put our name out there so people know they can bring animals to us, otherwise a lot of animals are killed needlessly because they don’t know about us. They don’t think there is anything they can do.”

One of the reasons for the programs is to collect donations. The donations do not have to be monetary. The clinic has a wish list and takes simple things such as towels, kitty litter boxes, dish soap, scrub brushes, Cheerios and caulk. The clinic also welcomes volunteers who would be willing to give their time.