Spring is here, birds are in the air, rabbits roam the ground freely, but occasionally, their paths cross with cars.

Thanks to the Wildlife Care Clinic, these injured animals can sometimes be saved and cared for.

“We take care of infant and orphaned wildlife and rehabilitate them to get them out to the [wild] as soon as possible,” said Adam Jones, a senior in animal ecology and the only full time worker at the Wildlife Care Clinic.

“If someone finds an injured raptor [bird of prey], to transport it, they should put a coat over the bird, keep it in a dark place, and don’t feed it,” Jones said.

Jones cautions that people should take special care not to touch any animals because they could be in a state of shock and may attack in self defense.

“We are getting a lot of people bringing in baby rabbits and birds, because they appear abandoned, but they should be left alone,” he said.

Jones said the clinic sees “a couple animals a day, about 300 to 350 patients a year.”

“We see everything, whatever people find,” said Jones. “We don’t see one animal as being less valuable than another.

“Recently, the clinic has taken in a tundra swan that was shot in eastern Iowa.

Jones expects that it will take about a year for the bird to recover before it can be released.

The clinic is funded strictly from donations, said Jones, but some of the animals can be fairly expensive to care for.

“The most serious cases can cost $300 to $400,” he said.

In addition to donations, the clinic also raises funds by giving presentations at schools, and they often bring in some of the permanent residents of the clinics —birds that have had amputations and cannot survive in the wild.

Jones said there are many volunteers who come to work at the clinic.

Volunteers learn a lot from their experience at the clinic — from biology to identification of animals.

Jones said there are about 15 volunteers at the clinic.

“We take anybody who is interested, you don’t have to be an animal ecology major,” Jones said.

“This has been very good experience. What I learned in class, I already learned here,” he said.

The clinic, which has been around since 1984, also takes care of the swans in Lake LaVerne and works with the Department of Natural Resources.