This Week at Liberty
April 21, 2026
Hoots, Howls, and Hollers
Megan Mosby
Executive Director
Make a Wish
The end of April signals seasonal changes at Liberty Wildlife. Starting in May our Open Hours change. We will open at 9:00 a.m. and close for visitors at 11:00 a.m. in deference to the heat! Before that happens, though, we have one more fun event to present to you. In recognition of Earth Day, which is actually this Wednesday, we will offer our annual Wish Tree Earth Day event on Sunday the 26th.
The Wish Tree
If you haven’t experienced this Wish Tree event, you are in for a fun surprise. It is based on the book by the same name. If you haven’t read the Wish Tree, this would be a great time to do it. In essence, you are invited to make a wish, place it on a card that we supply, and hang it on the tree to be sent out to the universe where wishes go to be granted! Photos from the first event show our little tree being decorated with wishes made by little people. Today, those kids aren’t little anymore, and neither is the tree. Time has passed and the event just gets better every year. We invite guests, little and big, young and old, all diversities to participate. We celebrate all the differences that make our tapestry whole and beautiful.
Wildlife Release
This year along with the Wish Tree, there will be a release of birds raised by Orphan Care Volunteers. Releasing honors go to raffle winners. Free raffle tickets will be given out as guests enter. A drawing for releasing rights will occur towards the end of the event…so don’t miss the highlight of the day. It could be you doing the honors.
Along with the release and wishes, environmental partners will be present, exhibiting their missions. Wildlife ambassadors will be out with educational handlers to greet the guests. There will be our regular eagle feeding and flighted show performances and open viewing on the Educational Trail and in the Interactive Room. Our Teen program will regale you with their educational booth offerings. And all the regular benefits of visiting the campus will be available.
Mark Your Calendar
Come celebrate Earth Day and our Wish Tree Event during our regular Open Hours this Sunday, April 26 from 10:00 to 1:00pm.
As spring turns to summer and as hot days replace perfection take this opportunity to see Liberty Wildlife and explore our mission to “nurture the nature of Arizona!”
This Week @ Liberty
The intake total for the year is now up to 2656.
It’s official; as our education and animal ambassadors begin to wind down for the summer, baby season is upon us. In fact, our intakes are up a whopping 75% from this time last year. Yes, you read that correctly; we have had 75% more intakes come through our doors. What does that mean for us? It means “all hands on deck.” Our volunteers are hard at work in orphan care feeding and caring for all the babies falling from their nests; our daily care team is busy cleaning enclosures and feeding raptors, along with adult songbirds and passerines (pigeons and doves). It also means our rescue and hotline teams are taking calls from the public, directing them on what to do, and rescuers doing what rescuers do (which is finding raptors and bringing them to us!).
This means that we are always looking for volunteers, too. So if you’re in a position to come and hang with us at least once a week, and save wildlife in the process, make sure to apply today!
By: Acacia Parker | Public Outreach Coordinator
New Faces
A big part of the volunteer team here at Liberty Wildlife is our rescue and hotline team. And while it sounds like they might be one and the same, I can assure you that while they certainly work together (and do a really great job!), they are each unique roles.
Hotline, as the name suggests, is where anyone who’s found an animal who’s sick, injured or orphaned can call for us to assist in the next steps in the process. Sometimes it may be a nest that’s fallen from a tree, babies are just fine and mom and dad are still close by; Kandy, our hotline co-coordinator, was able to walk the caller through helping set up a basket to replace the nest, and set it up in the same area, and now mom and kids are united and thriving. At other times the call might involve someone finding a fallen nestling while on a walk with a tree too tall to climb; that call might sound like instructions on how to get the nestling safely from where it was found to our hospital, and keeping it in a warm, dark, quiet place until they can be assessed and placed accordingly at our facility.
And then, at still other times, it looks like a great horned owl who was found down at a golf course (my own husband, in fact, experienced this). He was quick to call and tell me the owl was face first in the grass, and when he walked by to see if she was all right, could barely get lift to fly away, and once again, face planted. This is where our rescuers come in; after contacting the golf course to see if we had permission to go to hole #2, one of our many rescuers was able to head down and see if she could find the owl. Unfortunately, after extensive searching, she was unable to locate this owl. Frustrating, yes, but with an animal still mobile (even able to weakly fly or walk), these birds will do whatever they can to find a warm, dark and quiet place to rest, and hopefully, heal up.
In truth, if I could have done this differently, I would have asked my husband to stay with the owl. That would have allowed us to have eyes on the bird until our rescuer made it to him, which would have given us a better chance at helping the animal. Sometimes the results are unsatisfying and anticlimactic. But we do it again and again.
Sometimes circumstances don’t align, and staying with the animal isn’t always possible. But that’s where our rescue and hotline team work so well together; you have a volunteer helping someone on the phone, being that first line of defense to get the best possible care, meanwhile they’re working with our rescuer to get someone out to assist that great horned owl or that red-tailed hawk.
And we can always use more volunteers hoping to help our native wildlife. If you’re interested in volunteering for a few hours once a week, rescue and hotline are great spots to dip your feet in. You can apply here (and I hope you do!)
Notable Mentions
As always, thanks for caring for our native wildlife here in Arizona! We’ve got our annual Wish Tree event happening Sunday, April 26th, totally free, from 10am-1pm! Make sure to drop in and say hello to all your favorite animal ambassadors before we change to our summer hours, 9am-11am, starting in May!
Without further ado, here are this weeks’ notable mentions:
- Raven eggs brought to us hatched last week! Two naked littles are now being monitored and fed until they’re large enough to move outside (1 picture)
- Midwestern teacher Dr. Goe and students check-in ten tiny desert tortoises who are now chilling in the interactive room (2 pictures)
- Another egg hatch; this time, a verdin! So small! (1 picture)
- A great horned owl nestling/close to fledgling let’s me take a quick photo before being fed (1 picture)
It’s definitely busy season here at Liberty Wildlife. Make sure to keep an eye out for all the fun and interesting things happening here on our six-acre campus!
Until next time!
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