Hear of work at Winged Freedom Raptor Hospital at Thursdays at the U

Kim Ammann, a veterinarian, licensed wildlife rehabilitator and founder of Winged Freedom Raptor Hospital will be the featured speaker for the Feb. 15 Thursdays at the U lecture at the UW-Eau Claire — Barron County.

Amman will talk about Winged Freedom’s work from 12:30-1:30 p.m. in the Blue Hills Lecture Hall in Ritzinger Hall. The presentation also will be livestreamed at ricelaketv.com.

Winged Freedom is a registered nonprofit in Spooner that rescues hawks, owls and eagles, provides free veterinary care and then returns the raptors to the wild. As a 100% volunteer organization, all donations are used to care for the birds.

Ammann will discuss the roots of the organization, the facility, how the wide variety of raptors’ medical conditions are treated, as well as other details about this unique avian hospital.

Generous donations have enabled the recent completion of a new hospital and eagle flyway. Bald eagles comprise almost half of the raptors treated, well over 50 eagles per year. They use the flyway to rest, bathe and fly as they heal from their injuries.

Prior to founding Winged Freedom, Ammann practiced small-animal medicine for 25 years. She worked in the Twin Cities for the first 10 years, seeing mostly dogs, cats and pet birds. However, as a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, she always made time to treat wild birds.

After moving to Spooner and being the only avian specialist in the area, opportunities to treat wild birds grew exponentially. After 15 years of general veterinary practice in northwest Wisconsin, she decided to retire and focus exclusively on wild raptors.

The Thursdays at the U weekly series is free and open to the public thanks to support from the UW-Eau Claire — Barron County Foundation. Neither seating reservations nor parking permits are needed for campus guests. In addition to the livestream option, the recordings are archived on the Thursdays at the U webpage.

The next lecture in the series will be Feb. 22, with Geoffrey Pedersen presenting “1950s Deer Camp.”

For more information, call the campus at 715-788-6244 or email Linda Tollefsrud, the series organizer, at tollefla@uwec.edu.