A Boulder County wildlife rehabilitation group has taken in and treated a record number of injured, orphaned and sick critters in 2025.
Mysti Tatro with Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation told KUNC that facility upgrades over the last decade have enabled the Lyons-based organization to handle at least 5,121 animals this year, a 20% increase from 2024.
“We've built a crow aviary, and more recently, we've built a lagomorph facility, which we call the bunny hotel, and we've also integrated some home rehab partners. Those are folks that are licensed to take animals home,” Tatro said.
The expansion was a response to growing intake numbers in recent years. But Tatro said this year's surge is because of the increase in capacity.
“A few rehab centers, unfortunately, have been shut down, or they have been forced to take in less animals," Tatro said. "For example, a rabbit rehabilitator that took in many of the rabbits on the Front Range retired, and that caused us to grow with the lagomorph facility.”
Tatro said a majority of the cases Greenwood sees are related to human impacts.
"We're seeing a lot of cases of rabbits caught by cats, geese hit by vehicles, birds hitting a window during migration season,” Tatro said.
The group also treats high-impact diseases like avian flu.
Greenwood has relied on licensed home rehab volunteers who can take care of animals at home, including orphaned babies.
"Our home rehab partners are feeding baby squirrels, for example, the entire day," she said.So they get up at 6 a.m. and they have to feed them in regular intervals until 9 p.m. They have to adhere to a schedule in order to make sure that these babies get fed and they can absorb the nutrients in the proper amount of time. It's not something that you can really get into overnight. You have to train for a long time to be able to rehabilitate an animal."
Tatro says rehabilitating sick and injured animals and raising orphaned babies is expensive and donations are always appreciated. She recommends using the free Animal Help Now mobile app if you need to report a wild animal in need of care.
