TORRINGTON — For 30 years the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program has been rescuing and rehabilitating birds of prey such as eagles, hawks, falcons and vultures. Through an agreement with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, injured raptors from the Cowboy State can be transported to RMRP’s facility in Fort Collins, Colo., for medical care, and, hopefully, release back into the wild.
On Thursday, staff and volunteers from RMRP visited Lingle-Fort Laramie and Southeast schools to teach students about the program and introduce them to three of the facilities long-term guests.
“The number of birds we get from Wyoming is growing,” said Carin Avala, education director for RMRP. “Overall we receive about 300 birds a year and, of the treatable injuries, about 85 percent go back to the wild.”
Unfortunately, there are birds the program rescues but cannot return to the wild because of the extent of its injuries, such as broken wings that don’t heal properly, vision damage or some other permanent injury that limits the birds likelihood of survival if released. Fortunately for the birds, RMRP provides a life time of room and board for a raptor unable to return to the wild.
“The mission of the RMRP is to rescue, rehabilitate and release the birds that are brought to us,” Avala explained. “But sometimes, even though the bird has healed and is doing well, it will never be able to survive in its native habitat.”

Whenever possible, these birds become Educational Ambassadors and are used in RMRP’s educational program to teach students and adults about raptor biology, natural ecology and many other topics about wildlife and their natural environment.
Avala and her two assistants, Lisa Winta and Jeana Darst, brought three Educational Ambassadors on their visit to southeast Wyoming, including a turkey vulture, Swainson’s hawk and a great horned owl.
“Our turkey vulture came to the program in 1988. Its one of our oldest residents,” Avala told a group of kindergarteners through third graders. “The Swainson’s hawk was brought to us in 2011 from the Teton Raptor Center in Jackson Hole and the great horned owl came to us in 2012 from Casper. All three probably were hit by cars.”
Though the Educational Ambassadors have permanent disabilities, they have adapted humans and can be handled, fed and cared for without much risk of hurting themselves or someone else.
“RMRP started as a veterinary club at Colorado State University in 1979,” she said. “In the 1980s it became an official rescue program and in 1987 it officially became a part of the CSU vet program.”
In the years since, RMRP is no longer part of CSU, but is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, licensed by the state of Colorado and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a wildlife rehabilitation program, and has helped 6,000 raptors.
“Injured, sick and orphaned birds come to us in a lot of different ways,” Avala said. “We get them from students like you, or other people, but most of the time we get them from the game and fish or some other agency.
“Mostly their injuries are the result of being hit by a car but there are a lot of other ways a raptor gets injured. It can collide power lines, or be attacked by cats or dogs or even get tangled in barbed wire.
“We just got a hawk that had lead poisoning. It probably ate off a dead animal that had been shot and ingested some of the lead pellets used to shot it. There are lots of ways a bird can get injured. And lots of ways it can come to us.”
More information can be found at the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program on its website at www.rmrp.org and the Teton Raptor Center at www.tetonraptorcenter.org.