California Raptor Center

Mailing address:

One Shields Avenue

School of Veterinary Medicine

University of California

Davis, CA 95616

Hours

Self-guided tours:

Mon-Fri: 9am-4pm

Sat: 9am-12pm

Call to schedule guided tour

Phone

(530) 752-9994

Website

http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/calraptor/

From their website, Newsletter:

"The California Raptor Center (CRC) is dedicated to the rehabilitation of injured and orphaned raptors. The Center receives over 250 injured or ill raptors each year and is able to release over 60% of these birds. The Center provides hands-on training in the care and management of birds of prey and provides educational programs to the general public and the university community."

The raptor center is located on south campus. It makes for a good bike ride from campus to take a break from it all and see some beautiful birds while they are recovering. They also take volunteers if you are interested in feeding and handling raptors.

If you want to learn about raptors and get 2 units for it, I highly recommend the class Avian Sciences 15L. In addition to raptor biology and identification, you'll get hands on experience catching and handling the birds.

As an interesting side note, I developed the California Raptor Center page (directly from CRC literature) when I was a student, on my free time because they didn't have a webpage yet and I thought the place was cool (and I still do). When the vetmed division found out about my page, they asked if they could use it as their official page. Most of those pages are still intact.

The CRC has an open house (I think it's normally in early May) where the volunteers will hold the birds and talk about them. It is a great time to visit the CRC if you've never been, or want to learn more about the birds than the informational signs around the cages can impart.

My favorite bird at the CRC is a turkey vulture named Balzac. Balzac is so acclimated to humans that he is not afraid of them (and consequently, can't be released into the wild). He is in the cage with the two turkey vultures. If you put your shoe up next to his cage, he'll come nibble at your shoelaces. —AlexPomeranz

Eagle

Comments:

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Does anyone know if the dog kennels originally used to housed birds were the ones that were used to house the radioactive beagles referred to here and here? -GeorgeLewis

2008-12-26 14:14:27 Great place—wish they had more support and funding (probably not possible in these difficult times). Went to the open house and really enjoyed seeing these beautiful birds up close. They also have occasional morning walks to go bird-watching, which are fun. —RHeinman