It took close to five years to complete, but the new raptor enclosure at the Medicine River Wildlife Centre is finished and now home to a number of species recovering from injuries. “It just all kind of came together, I still stand and look at it and go wow, I can’t believe we did this,” said executive director Carol Kelly, . The structure boasts nine separate cages of various sizes to fit the needs of the birds in recovery along with a total of 5,500 cubic metres of total flight space. The largest area is now home to five bald eagles. Kelly says the new enclosure allows the birds to take flight for short distances. “They need to have that strength to be able to fly in order to function in the wild,” she said. “If they don’t have that strength and aerobic power, they’re not going to be able to hunt and if they can’t hunt, they’re not going to survive.” Owls Kelly says by far the majority of patients using the new facility are owls, with 15 of them in a massive space. “It’s so big you hardly know it,” she said. “And this spring we had two of the females decided to lay eggs, they like it so much over there, it’s such a good environment that they laid eggs and hatch babies.” Facility manager Todd Kelly was responsible for the construction of the raptor building, managing dollars, material donations and volunteer carpenters over the last seven or so years. “A couple of years of that was planning, but actual construction phase took about five years,” he said. “One of the main reasons it takes a little bit longer than (other projects) is we never build anything on credit so if we don’t have the cash in the bank, we don’t buy it and we don’t build so we did it in stages.” Todd says all in, the project cost close to $250,000. He says some of the volunteer help came from the Bowden Institution and low risk inmates close to parole. The program teaches them a skill they can use when they get out. A crew of six spent about five hours, three days a week on site for a number of months. Todd says he couldn’t have done this construction project without them. “Those guys, man they put in a lot of hours on this building so I helped build it but they did the bulk of the work, they were amazing,” he said. “There’s other projects they work on in central Alberta, but they all say that this is their favorite one to be on, they all want to be here because they get to see something that they’ve built go to use to help something for the better.” Carol Kelly says now they’re focused on rebuilding the visitor centre that’s attached to the hospital because it’s been overdue for some time. “We had a building that we built in the very beginning and we built it out of home grade materials and donated stuff,” she said. “We had no idea how big we were going to get and the building just fell apart, it was no good anymore.” Kelly says the visitor centre will cost close to $2,000,000 but she only needs to raise another $750,000 to complete it. The Medicine River Wildlife Centre is hosting a celebration of the completion of the raptor building for it’s donors and volunteers August 26th. Learn more about the operation here.
