Wildlife Rescue of Dade County

Our organization is run by Certified Wildlife Rehabilitator Lloyd Brown. His 30+ years of experience and federal and State licenses to handle and rehabilitate wild animals, allow us to professionally and legally care for every animal that comes into the center. We also work closely with local Veterinarians and wildlife specialists all over the world to provide the best care possible for every patient.
We are dedicated to ensuring every animal we release into the wild is fit to survive. This includes preparing baby animals for survival and making sure all injured animals have healed 100% before release.
Wildlife Rescue of Dade County provides free educational programs to schools and community organizations. Occasionally, animals get admitted with injuries or conditions that prevent them from ever being able to survive in the wild. When this happens, we have the opportunity to turn them into educational ambassadors. As of August 2021, WRDC has two non-releasable animal ambassadors: an adult female Peregrine falcon with one wing (gunshot injury), and a male Broadwing Hawk also with only one wing (injury causation unknown). Our animals participate in educational programs to teach all ages about their wild counterparts and about how we all can help keep Dade County wild.
We collaborate with the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council (on which Lloyd sits as a board member) to deploy our staff to other countries to teach wildlife rehabilitation basic skills. Lloyd is the recipient of: the 2021 Wildlife Rehabilitation Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Rehabilitators Association; the 2022 Tropical Audubon Society Polly Redford Citizen Service Award; the first-of-its-kind 2021 Ambassador Award from the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council; and the 1998 Spirit of Rehabilitation Award from the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council.
Our organization has no paid staff, and solely runs on time given from WRDC team members between their full time jobs.
We provide the critical service of identifying wildlife diseases in our patients. We can report dangerous/ novel wildlife diseases including diseases that could be passed on to humans. We can also report potential contaminants, bird die-offs, and fish kills as encountered, thus serving as a first line of defense against future pandemics, local outbreaks of rabies, and potential environmental impacts to our communities.