Volunteer and Help Us Save Lives
We are currently recruiting for the following:
- Transporters between our Northerly Island (downtown Chicago) and Barrington location
- Triage Assistants at our downtown Chicago location
- Rescue and recovery volunteers to rescue migratory birds in downtown Chicago
- Backup transporter to fill in when normal transporters have vacations, etc. - days flexible
- Volunteers to help us fix up our new Barrington location, including carpenters, painters and gardeners.
If you are interested in volunteering, you may complete on-line volunteer application form. Please complete all requested information since we match up your interests and availability against current openings.
Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation is an all-volunteer organization and we rely on volunteers for every aspect of our work. Whether it's caring for animals, answering telephones, cleaning cages, rescuing animals, picking up donations, or building this website, we need volunteers to do it! PLUS we have an amazing group of caring, dedicated, and talented volunteers. You should really consider becoming part of it!
Rehabilitation
Because high quality of care is critical to our patients, we use our most experienced volunteers for our animal care positions. Most of our animal care volunteers started volunteering for Flint Creek Wildlife in other capacities and then expanded their organizational role to include animal care once they had the required training and experience. We consider new volunteers for animal care positions only if they already have wildlife and/or veterinary experience gained elsewhere.
If you are interested in becoming a volunteer at Flint Creek Wildlife but do not have wildlife or veterinary experience, there are still ways to get involved. Our Northerly Island facility has Triage Assistants, for example, and although Triage Assistants
do not directly work on the animals, they assist the Triager in a variety of capacities and gain invaluable experience that helps prepare them to eventually move into a Triager position.
If you are interested in volunteering, you may complete our online volunteer application form.
Thanks for considering to help Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation in our mission of Saving Lives.
Rescue and Recovery
Only a few hours one morning each week for 10–12 weeks could save the lives of hundreds of birds!
Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation operates rescue and recovery teams that patrol buildings in Chicago's downtown loop each morning during migration in order to save birds that strike buildings. These birds are transported to Flint Creek Wildlife's nearby Northerly Island location where they receive prompt medical care for treatment of their time-sensitive injuries.
Thousands of birds strike glass on Chicago's many buildings during their twice-yearly migration through the city. These stunned birds fall to the ground where they lie unconscious. Without intervention, they are stepped on by unaware pedestrians, eaten by hungry gulls, or die a slow death without the benefit of medical treatment. These birds include many beautiful warblers, woodpeckers, thrushes, and buntings, among others.
Since the 2007 migration season, over 90% of birds that are rescued and arrive alive at our Northerly Island facility each year recover and can be released back to the wild. Timely treatment is important to survival rates and our rescue teams ensure that birds are treated by our trained staff at Northerly Island where they have their best chance of survival.
Training will be provided. We conduct New Volunteer Orientation sessions in late February/early March and again in August/early September, so please apply now and we will contact you with specific training dates!
If you are interested in volunteering, you may complete our online volunteer application form.
Thank you for your interest in helping Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation in our mission of Saving Lives.
Transporter
Our Transport Volunteers are invaluable to us and this position only requires 4–5 hours one day a week!
Driver's license? Insurance? Like to drive? Safe? If you answered yes, yes, yes, yes, then you could help us by transporting injured and orphaned animals between our downtown Chicago facility and our Barrington facility. You might actually be surprised at how important this role is to our organization, but it is really one of the key volunteer roles that keeps our organization running smoothly.
Because our Northerly Island facility is only open a couple of hours each day, we don't keep animals at Northerly Island overnight. Animals admitted at Northerly Island are stabilized and then transported to our Barrington facility where they receive 24-hour care. Without a transporter, one of our animal care volunteers would be torn away from our patients to spend hours in the car, so this role is really essential.
If you're interested in driving one day/week on a regular basis-fantastic! The normal transporter generally picks up at Northerly Island at 10:30 am, so morning availability is necessary.
We need people with fairly flexible schedules that are willing to cover a day here and there when our normal Transporters are on vacation. We also need people willing to do short-notice afternoon transports on an as-needed basis as outlined below.
If you like to drive and would be willing to transport but only have afternoons available, we frequently require a second transport in the afternoon during our busy season. The afternoon transport would be on an as-needed basis, so a regular weekly commitment isn't required.
If you are interested in volunteering, you may complete our online volunteer application form.
Thank you for your interest in helping Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation in our mission of Saving Lives.
Raptor Handling
In awe of Raptors? We are too! Raptor Handler Volunteers for Flint Creek Wildlife get some amazing opportunities to handle our magnificent education birds of prey on the glove at education programs. Education programs allow us to promote wildlife and habitat conservation issues that are critical to the future of native wildlife. We believe that we can advance and improve wildlife care and stewardship through continuing education. Becoming a Raptor Handler Volunteer allows you to participate in this rewarding education process.
Because we won't compromise on the safety for our birds or the safety of our volunteers, only persons who successfully complete our 10-week Raptor Internship, or who have experience handling with another organization and successfully demonstrate their skills, are eligible for this volunteer position.
To learn more about our Raptor Internship, visit the Training section of our website. If you already have training and experience in handling birds of prey on the glove and are interested in volunteering, then please complete our online volunteer application form.
Come join us in our mission of Saving Lives!
Other Volunteer Opportunities
Volunteer positions in support roles are extremely important because they allow our trained animal care personnel and to focus on providing the best possible care to the animals.
Some of our other volunteer positions can be completed at your home and at your own pace, while others require you to be on-site with a consistent time commitment (note the locations are also indicated):
- Cage cleaning (Barrington, not currently recruiting)
- Education (remotely and off-site educational programs)
- Errands, picking up donations (remotely)
- Events (remotely)
- Sewing projects (remotely)
- Construction projects (working both remotely and Barrington)
- Fundraising and grant research and writing (remotely)
- Graphics (remotely)
- Painting our new/future facility (Barrington)
- Administrative support (remotely)
- Accounting services, CPA required (remotely)
To learn more about volunteering in Rescue and Recovery, Transport, or Raptor Handling, visit those specific sections on our website.
If you are interested in volunteering, please complete our online volunteer application form.
Thank you for your interest in helping Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation.
