On a grassy hill, hidden from civilization by a thick line of foliage, sits a place where all types of Pennsylvania wildlife can be found at once.

Fluffy, scaly and slimy are all housed under one roof in the Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh (HARP) Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Penn Hills.

From two groundhogs growing back their fur after one battled a nasty case of mange and both had bouts of ringworm, to an elderly opossum that had a run in with a car, there are animals of all shapes and sizes being treated or recovering from a medley of ailments at every turn.

According to Katie Kefalos, director of wildlife rehabilitation for HARP, animals treated at the center include rabbits, raccoons, squirrels, groundhogs, opossums, multiple species of birds, lizards, turtles, snakes, bats and other reptiles and mammals.

Each year, the center provides treatment and rehabilitation to more than 4,200 animals — with the clinic receiving animals every day.

When people encounter injured wildlife and are able to safely catch them, they can drop the animal off at the clinic at any time, day or night.

The clinic once received 68 patients in one day during its busy season, Kefalos said. People also can call the clinic’s helpline if they are unsure whether an animal is in distress.

“They can call if they’re confused if (an animal) is injured, or if it’s just walking around looking confused or if it is in need of assistance,” Kefalos said. “They can always call our helpline.”

There aren’t many ailments or animals the clinic hasn’t treated in its 27 years of operation. However, Kefalos said, they draw the line at venomous snakes, bears and whitetail deer.

“We rehabilitate almost all native (Pennsylvania) wildlife,” Kefalos said. “We just don’t have the facility to handle bears or whitetail deer here in a residential neighborhood.”

HARP’s Wildlife Center operates on 2 acres of its 17-acre property, with the majority of the land dedicated as a pet cemetery.

“We’re not in the business of digging things up, but the wildlife love our open fields,” Kefalos said. “We spot deer, groundhogs, turkeys, and there’s a redtail (hawk) that’s made its nest on our property.”

The 2 acres house an education building, a clinic, a flight enclosure and a pre-release building with 19 cages for animals ready to return to the wild.

A tour of the clinic

The clinic is where most of the magic happens.

Visitors entering the building can look to their left and find a large drop-off unit on the front porch. The wooden structure has doors with outlines of different animals to signify their designated cubby, including birds, squirrels, rabbits, bats, foxes, owls and raccoons. The unit was built and gifted to the center by a local Girl Scout troop in 2020.

The clinic building features an avian nursery with a slew of incubators used to house developing baby birds. As the birds develop, they move down the line of incubators until it’s time for them to go into adult cages, where they learn to flap their wings and build up their muscles. Adult birds are housed in the same room and can go through the same process depending on their injuries when they arrive.

The next room in the hallway is lovingly referred to as the “bunny room.” Eastern cottontails are the largest volume of patients the clinic receives.

“We do anywhere from 1,100 to 1,200 Eastern cottontails a year, and we take in about 4,000 animals a year,” Kefalos said. “Because they’re so high stress — because they’re a prey species — they get their own room.”

The room has accepted four Eastern cottontail tenants that are each about 13 days old and roughly the size of two limes. They were found after their mother was attacked by a dog and will be released back into the wild once they are 21 days old and weigh at least 100 grams.

The building includes a main aviary and a small flight aviary. Both rooms currently house the pair of groundhogs while they regrow their fur. Typically, the rooms are used for birds and feature an indoor and outdoor portion that allows younger birds to be weathered and gain some flight muscles before being released. Since the indoor space is a concrete room, it can be used for animals that need to be housed alone if there are fewer bird patients in need of treatment.

The next door in the hallway is a recovery room space. This is a room equivalent to a meditation room. Kefalos describes it as a place that’s “off the beaten path” with volunteers and staff only entering to feed recovering animals. It currently houses a medley of reptiles, a screech owl recovering from an evisceration surgery that removed his eye and a black rat snake that is recovering from a bone infection in her jaw.

Kefalos is one of five licensed animal rehabilitators on staff. HARP has one veterinarian, Marit Bakken, who treats animals at HARP’s domestic shelter and the Wildlife Center. She has been with the organization for the past seven months.

Across the hall is the mammal nursery, where all nonrabies vector patients end up — including opossums and weasels. Four 6-week-old fox squirrels will be calling one of the cages home for a few more weeks, as will two 4-week-old Eastern gray squirrels.

Through an entryway is a step further to full recovery. Rehabilitation Run is a series of cages built into what used to be horse stalls.

“When our patients are feeling a little bit better but they’re not quite ready to go outside, they can come in here,” Kefalos said.

Separated from the other animals is a rabies vector room. Kefalos said the center rehabilitates all species the state of Pennsylvania deems at higher risk to transmit the rabies virus, such as groundhogs, skunks, bats, raccoons, foxes and coyotes.

Despite the labyrinth-like building featuring almost more treatment areas than one could imagine, the HARP team uses the space to the fullest extent by lining the right side of the building with pre-release cages for reptiles, birds and mammals.

Busy season ahead

While it may seem like the current patients would make a full house for the clinic, the busy season has yet to begin. Spring and summer brings an onslaught of baby animals that need care.

“We just finished our nursery bootcamp,” Kefalos said. “We have a program for the summer where we bring on about 30 volunteers that literally just come in once a week to help us feed babies.”

Kefalos said anyone is welcome to volunteer at the shelter as long as they are willing to learn about wildlife care.

“We train everyone from everything in animal care, to quality care, baby feedings — to even helping us keep the clinic swept and mopped and sanitized,” Kefalos said. “We rely heavily on our volunteers to help us with our mission.”

Kefalos described the busy season as intense.

Every spring, thousands of baby wildlife, some injured or orphaned, arrive at the center. To help prepare for the surplus, HARP’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Center will be hosting a Wildlife Baby Shower to help stock up on needed supplies.

From 10 a.m. to noon April 13 at HARP’s East Side shelter on Hamilton Avenue, guests can bring donations to add to a large nest. Donation suggestions include common items such as paper towels, canned mixed fruit, unsalted nuts, sweet potato baby food and bird seed. During the celebration, guests can meet some animals and take in a story time, games, crafts and snacks.

“It’s our way of trying to collect supplies to take care of the thousands of babies that come in every year,” Kefalos said. “Come the end of April and the beginning of May is when we’ll really get a ton of patients.”

For a complete list of suggested donations, guests can check the wildlife center’s wish list on the Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh’s website. People also can schedule a time to drop-off donations at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center if they are unable to bring them to the Wildlife Baby Shower.

“Honestly, every donation counts,” Kefalos said. “We use so many different supplies that anything that anyone would be interested in donating is really helpful.”