Raptors - Huntsville Botanical Gardens

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In the mid-1970s Dr. Jimmy Milton founded the Southeastern Raptor Rebilitation Center when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service brought six injured birds to the College of Veterinary Medicine and asked that the school become a rehabilitation hub for the Southeast. Dean Jimmy Greene, Dr. Greg Boring of Radiology and Dr. Milton arranged for Auburn University to become a regional center and accept injured birds of prey.

No facility or finances existed so the group used the hospital area of the Small Animal Clinic and the expertise of Dr. Milton and other volunteers to provide the services. Students also volunteered providing outreach/educational programs. Dr. Ken Nusbaum was instrumental in helping the students with the educational programs.

Donation provided material to build a raptor barn behind the Small Animal Clinic in the late 1970s. Birds were still treated in the hospital before being moved to small flight cages next to the barn. Later a hospital area was incorporated into the raptor barn.

The Raptor Center was not on the university's priority funding list so the only money the raptor center received came from small contributions after educational programs.

In the late 1980s, participation was opened to wildlife students. Veterinary students provided treatment while wildlife students worked on rehabilitation of the birds.

Thanks to the support of Dean Boosinger, the Center hired its first paid staff member, Joe Shelnutt, in 1996.

In 1998 the Elmore Bellingrath Bartlett Raptor Center Hospital was opened just off Shug Jordan Parkway behind the College of Veterinary Medicine. The facility was made possible by a $300,000 donation from Dr. Woody Bartlett '64 in honor of his mother, Elmore Bellingrath Bartlett, a noted Alabama philanthropist.

In 2002, the College of Veterinary Medicine opened the Carol Clark Laster/W.E. Clark Jr. Raptor Training Facility, which was made possible by Carol Laster of Birmingham. Laster, a retired junior high science teacher, donated $500,000 to the raptor center. Her husband, Dr. Russell Laster, is a 1951 graduate of the veterinary college. Mrs. Laster selected the Raptor Center for the gift after the death of her uncle W.E. Clark Jr., who left his estate to her care.

The Raptor Training Facility consists of 24 state of the art mews and an office building. Non releasable raptors are kept and trained at the facility for use in the educational programs. The Laster's also contributed to the rehabilitation unit with the construction of six large flight aviaries for aerobic conditioning of releasable raptors.

A steering committee was appointed from the College of Veterinary Medicine and the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences to advise on policies and procedures. Dr. Kenneth Nusbaum, an infectious disease specialist in the veterinary college, chairs the group.

In 2002 The Raptor Center hired Dr. Jill Heatley a board-certified specialist in Avian Practice.

In August 2003, Dr. Ron Montgomery, professor and chief of surgery and the CVM, was appointed interim director.

In January of 2004, the Center hired two fulltime Education Specialist, Roy Crowe and Marianne Murphy to provide education/outreach programs for the Center.

Later that same year, the Southeastern Raptor Rehabilitation Center (SERRC) was renamed the Southeastern Raptor Center (SRC) to reflect its multiple missions of rehabilitation, education and research.

Dr. Jaime Bellah, a CVM professor of small animal surgery, was named director of the SoutheasternRaptor Center on November 2, 2004.

Liz Crandalll was hired as full time Veterinarian Technician in 2005.

On November 16, 2005 the Edgar B. Carter Educational Amphitheater was opened through a formal ceremony honoring the late Edgar B. Carter, former director of research for Abbott Laboratories in Chicago. His daughter, Carol Clark of Princeville, Illinois, gave a $400,000 gift in his memory to fund the new facility. The amphitheater seats 300 visitors and provides a venue for onsite flighted programs.

Since its modest beginning in the mid-1970s, the Southeastern Raptor Center has treated and release back into the wild thousands of birds of prey. The education unit has provided educational programs for thousands of schools, civic groups and churches in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Kentucky.