Our Patients

Specializing in wildlife rehabilitation, education, and conservation, PHSS is Miami’s only full-service native wildlife hospital; we are open 365 days a year. Every day, PHSS receives calls from concerned citizens reporting sick, injured, or orphaned wildlife. Many of our patients fall victim to fishing hooks becoming lodged in their pouches, throats, or stomachs. Others become entangled in fishing lines rendering them unable to fly or fish for food. Other native birds fly into windows or are hit by vehicles, fall prey to domestic pets, baby birds fall from their nests unable to fly, and orphaned baby squirrels and opossums with no parent in sight, without immediate help, will likely succumb to a long and painful death. Also, poisoning, botulism, parasites, fungal infections, toxic chemicals in the environment, a shortage of fish because of mismanaged fisheries (or because of overfishing), and the loss of their natural habitats all contribute to their daily struggle for survival.

PHSS is dedicated to improving the lives of sick, injured, and orphaned native wildlife with the goal of releasing healthy patients back into the ecosystem, thus enabling future generations. We embody the highest level of patient care, compassion, and integrity while promoting community engagement on the importance of wildlife conservation. In 2021, we treated 2124 patients from 118 species including seabirds, songbirds, waterbirds, passerines, mammals, birds of prey, and reptiles, and fielded over 5,615 wildlife-related calls offering referrals for non-native animals needing assistance.

Our dedicated team consists of 8 full-time and 6 part-time staff members including 2 veterinarians; 75 extraordinary volunteers, Operation Rescue and Release Team Members, and 19 interns donating 10,500 hours annually.

Osprey that was shot

This Osprey came in April 2021 after being found with severe trauma and bloody wounds. After our initial exam and X-rays, it was found that this Osprey had been shot with a BB gun and had sustained a fracture to its left tarsometatarsus fracture. The BB pellet left the left tarsometatarsus completely shattered. (X-rays in next picture).

X-Rays of Osprey that was shot

In this x-ray, you can see the two BB gun pellets that hit the Osprey in the previous picture.

Brown Pelican Pouch Repair

One of the most common injuries we see in Brown Pelicans are fishing hook and line injuries. Many times Pelicans swallow the hook, are hooked on their skin, and many times are hooked on their pouch causing the skin to rip open. Here you can see the before and after of a Brown pelican with a very large pouch tear that went through several weeks of surgeries and rehab before the pouch completely healed and he/she was released back into the wild.

Wildlife rehabbers performing a pouch repair surgery

Pictured are Hannah McDougall, Wildlife Rehabber, and Yaritza Acosta, Wildlife Rehab Manager, performing a pouch repair surgery on the Pelican with a torn pouch (previous picture).

Almost healed Pelican pouch

This is the healed scar after a few of the pouch repair surgeries. This juvenile Brown pelican continued in rehab and had one more surgery to finish the repair. After just a few more weeks, he/she had their final surgery and was practicing how to fly and rebuilding his/her muscles before being released back into the wild!

Brown pelican with swallowed fishing hooks

These X-rays are of a Brown Pelican that swallowed several fishing hooks.

$Abused Laughing gull with a wing fracture$

Abused Laughing gull with a wing fracture

This Laughing gull was brought in after a member of the public abused and broke its wing on purpose.

Royal tern swallowed hook

This Royal tern came in August of 2020 after a good Samaritan found it with a fishing line coming out of its mouth. After X-rays and initial treatment was done, we found a really big fishing hook in its belly. Our team administered a cotton fish to get the tern to regurgitate it and the very next day the tern regurgitated all of the cotton WITH the hook! It was in treatment for just about 10 more days before it was successfully released back into the wild!