The patients at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center’s new campus in Washington County certainly seem to like their accommodations.
On a recent weekday afternoon, young raccoons played with large plastic toys and caught minnows, a litter of orphaned opossums napped in the shade in tiny hammocks, and ducks splashed in blue plastic pools.
All are housed in species-specific outdoor cages, designed to reduce the stress of human interaction, on a 22-acre farm in Grant.
Center officials bought the property in 2019, and plans call for ground to be broken in September on the first phase of a $3 million waterfowl and aquatic-mammal facility that will house 20 runs with indoor pools and 10 animal wards.
Eventually, center officials plan to build a $15 million, 25,000-square-foot final-stage rehabilitation building on the site in Grant.
“It’s critically important to provide sufficient space for injured and orphan wild animals when they need less human contact and more space and quiet,” said Phil Jenni, the center’s former executive director, who now serves as director of special projects. “We know firsthand that our release rates improve when nursery patients are removed from the hustle and bustle, have room to run, jump, fly, and are put in a position for their natural instincts to thrive.”
The center’s existing veterinary hospital in Roseville has been providing care to injured animals and training the next generation of wildlife veterinarians since it started in 1979 as a student organization at the University of Minnesota.
The center has experienced extraordinary growth over the past few years, said Tami Vogel, executive director. More than 21,600 animal patients were treated at the center last year, up from 13,276 in 2018.
“Most of that growth was from orphaned animals, and we are out of room at our Roseville hospital,” Jenni said. “The hospital should be used as just that — a hospital. It’s not the appropriate habitat for nearly 70 percent of our patients. That’s why we started looking for additional land.”
Sustainable and bio-secure
Phil Jenni, director for special projects at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Grant, talks about pools for waterfowl the organization plans to build on the 22-acre site. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Criteria for the new space included easy transport to and from Roseville, he said.
“We didn’t want to be more than 20 miles away,” he said. “We wanted to be able to get there in 15 to 20 minutes. Our preference was Washington County, and we found it for sale online.”
Minneapolis-based AWH Architects, which specializes in sustainable and historic-preservation projects, is designing the new energy-efficient building, which center officials expect to earn silver certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system.
Grant does not have city water or sewer, so the building will be outfitted with a highly specialized “first-of-its-kind filtration system designed to protect the county’s aquifers and watersheds,” Jenni said. The system will recycle and filter water daily, conserving 37 million gallons of water annually.
The building will feature a geothermal heating and cooling system and solar panels, bringing it to almost net zero energy consumption, according to Jenni.
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“Conserving natural resources and being stewards of the environment means helping all wildlife, not just our patients,” he said.
Once the system is up and running, more than 3,000 ducklings annually will grow up in filtered, clean water, Jenni said. One major bonus: The smell will be much improved.
“If you’ve ever been somewhere where there’s even six ducks in a room, the humidity and the smell is overwhelming,” Jenni said. “It’s overwhelming and unhealthy — both for humans and the animals.”
The new multi-purpose facility will feature bio-secure space for food prep and storage, and isolation wards. There also will be space for support functions, such as cleaning facilities, a cage-wash area and laundry, and a space for volunteers that includes a break room and restroom.
Escape artists
The farm’s horse barn has already been converted into a pigeon coop. “What a great place to raise pigeons, right?” Jenni said. “I mean, we have nothing like this in Roseville. These kinds of birds need space and need quite a bit of time, frankly, to be able to be on their own.”
Just around the corner from the pigeon coop is a cage containing 12 baby opossums sleeping in those baby-opossum hammocks. Five are siblings, and five were transferred from a private rehabilitation facility. Most were found after their mothers were hit by cars, said Noah Zerull, an adult-animal-care manager.
Each species is separated into shiny stainless-steel cages specially designed for wild animals. Staff enter into an entryway vestibule, latch the door, and then open the door to the primary cage.
“Everything that we have doesn’t want to be here,” Jenni said. “They want to be out of there, and there are a lot of escape artists. If you open a door, and it’s just a single door, your animal will rush or fly out at you, so all these cages have to have these little antechambers. That way, if it does get out, it’s still in the cage.”
A sign shows the locations of the 101 raccoons currently being cared for. Of the animals recovering at the center, the most impressive escape artists are the raccoons. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
The most impressive escape artists are the raccoons, Jenni said. Around 100 of them are rehabbing in Grant.
“They are as cute as all get out, and they can get out of anything,” he said. “They’re very tactile. They’re always using their paws and exploring. Anything that is the least bit flawed on a gate or something, they’ll get out of, so having this space has been just a lifesaver.”
The space for juvenile raccoons in Grant is almost eight times the size of their space in Roseville. Each worker must don personal protective equipment and put on special boots before entering the area.
Power washers are used to clean cages because “when you have this many animals, if one gets a contagious disease, they’ll all get it,” Jenni said.
Service in demand
The center treats all animals, including those that some might see as “nuisance animals,” Jenni said.
“We feel strongly that we’re a hospital,” he said. “Our goal is to treat every patient the same and put the same amount of time, energy and money into getting that animal ready to release as we would the charismatic animals.”
“It’s like I tell people, ‘If something happened to me, and I went down to Regions Hospital, I wouldn’t want them to say, ‘Well, there’s too many old white guys, so let’s let him go.’ We do not make a judgment on an individual animal.”
More than half of the center’s patients are orphans; the rest are sick or injured adults brought to the hospital by those who come across them. People from more than half of Minnesota’s 87 counties brought patients to the center in 2023.
“The most awe-inspiring part of our existence is that Minnesotans have made us one of the busiest wildlife hospitals in the world — the busiest in North America,” Vogel said. “It’s just mind-blowing. We do not pick up animals — every single patient that comes to us is because a compassionate person has made time in their busy day to help the animal. That, to me, speaks volumes about the kindness of Minnesotans and how much respect they have for wildlife.”
The center’s services are free; it relies 100% on donations, Vogel said.
There were 201 species admitted in 2024, including the second vesper sparrow in the center’s history and the first red-backed voles, Vogel said.
The species brought to the center change with the season; May and June are the busiest months, she said. Six of the 10 busiest days in the center’s history were recorded this year in May and June; the busiest day on record was recorded on June 7, when 280 patients were admitted, she said.
“People were lined up down the sidewalk waiting to bring in their patients,” she said.
Patient release
A blue jay sits on a branch as it recovers at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center’s Grant Township location on Tuesday July, 22, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Vogel said center staff members do an initial health check when a patient arrives. If the animal is deemed healthy, center staff ask that the person who brought the animal in return it to the wild, she said.
“A big portion of our mission is keeping wild families together, and we need to keep space available in the hospital for those patients that really need it,” she said.
Anyone who finds a wild juvenile animal that looks abandoned should call the center, and “we will help them evaluate the situation,” she said.
The center relies on almost 600 volunteers to feed and care for the animals. The center operates on a $2.8 million annual budget, most of it coming from individual donors, including $190,000 each year collected from a small wooden box in the center’s lobby.
“The only reason we exist is because people want us here,” she said. “They fund our services. They demand our services, and that’s the only reason we’re here. It truly is remarkable.”
Adult patients are always released by volunteers where they were found because “we don’t relocate,” Vogel said. “Juvenile animals are released to a suitable habitat. We try to release them as close to where they were found as possible.”
There is one exception. During migration, migratory birds are often released directly from the Roseville hospital, she said. “They just take off and go,” she said.
A ‘nice match’ in Grant
The Grant City Council in April 2020 approved a conditional-use permit allowing the center to operate on site, noting that the center’s proposed use conforms to the city’s comprehensive plan for rural-residential and agricultural uses.
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“We were keen at the time in making sure that the provisions in the (permit) were protective of the neighbors and preserved the rural heritage of Grant,” said Mayor Jeff Giefer. “There’s a nice match there with the wildlife and our rural heritage. We’re very excited to see it come to life.”
Center officials also have obtained necessary permits from Washington County and the Rice Creek Watershed District.
Center officials are working to raise $10 million for the project. A capital campaign for the project was launched with a $5 million gift from a longtime donor, Vogel said.
“We’ve had people leave whatever change they have in the cupholder of their car,” she said. “Every donation — regardless of the amount — helps us secure the future health of Minnesota’s wildlife.”
Wildlife Rehabilitation Center
The Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota is raising money for its new late-stage rehabilitation program in Grant. For donation information, go to wrcmn.org/donate.
Anyone who finds a wild animal that looks injured or abandoned should go to wrcmn.org and read their “What to do” guidelines. If you still have questions, leave a message at 651-486-9453 and they’ll get back to you.
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