Wetlands And Wildlife Care Center

Our mission is to educate the public about humankind's impact on the environment and mitigate that impact through care and rehabilitation of native wildlife

An oil-soaked bird lying helpless on a beach stained with black crude oil is a haunting image—one that Southern Californians know all too well. Since 1971, at least 44 oil spills exceeding 10,000 barrels (420,000 gallons) have occurred along the Pacific Coast, each threatening the survival of thousands of wild animals and damaging fragile ecosystems.
One of the most devastating incidents occurred in 1990, when 400,000 gallons of Alaskan crude oil spilled off the coast of Huntington Beach. That tragedy spurred the Alliance for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education and the Huntington Beach Wetlands Conservancy to begin planning for a permanent wildlife response center.
On March 31, 1997, with support from the California Department of Fish and Game’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response, Southern California Edison, and others, the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center (WWCC) opened in Huntington Beach as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit wildlife rehabilitation facility.
The WWCC admits sick, injured, and orphaned wild animals with the goal of rehabilitation and release back into the wild. The center is open seven days a week, year-round, and is also committed to public education on wildlife and habitat preservation.
WWCC is one of only 12 primary facilities in California designated by the Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN)—centers equipped to manage oil spill response from rescue through rehabilitation and release. Since opening, WWCC has responded to dozens of spills affecting thousands of birds and marine mammals, with a release rate exceeding 65%.
We receive wildlife patients from 62 cities across Southern California, and even as far as Henderson, Nevada and Parker, Arizona. Our trained staff and dedicated volunteers are on 24-hour call to respond to petroleum spills and other emergencies.
WWCC can care for up to 400 birds and mammals at once, with an emergency capacity of 1,000. Our team includes licensed volunteer veterinarians, trained wildlife technicians, and over 250 committed volunteers. Volunteers work four-hour shifts daily from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and are trained through a three-hour wildlife nursing course followed by a written exam. Non-animal care volunteers provide essential support in cage construction and repair, plumbing, electrical work, landscaping, data entry, education, fundraising, grant writing, and public outreach.
While treatment and rehabilitation areas are not open to the public, tours can be arranged by appointment. Educational programming is central to our mission. Our “Under Our Wings” program introduces teens ages 16–18 to wildlife care and conservation; many graduates have gone on to veterinary school, marine biology, and environmental science careers. WWCC also trains interns and externs and offers community-based education programs to increase awareness and inspire action.

Southern California is home to more than 23 million people—a population that continues to grow rapidly. This dense urban expansion places enormous pressure on the region’s natural resources, including water and open space, and takes a profound toll on native wildlife. As wild habitats shrink or disappear altogether, wild animals increasingly find themselves displaced, injured, orphaned, or sick—most often due to direct or indirect human activity.
While important efforts have been made to preserve remaining wildlife habitats, significantly less attention has been given to caring for the animals already harmed. The Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center (WWCC) fills this critical gap.
In just a few years, WWCC has grown into a sophisticated and coordinated network of trained wildlife professionals and dedicated volunteers—unique in Southern California for our accessibility, expertise, and success. Since opening, we have admitted over 200,000 wild animals. As of December 2024, our overall release rate is nearly 65%, a testament to the extraordinary care provided by our licensed veterinarians, wildlife technicians, and certified volunteers.
The majority of our patients—50% to 60%—are orphaned animals, many arriving during the spring baby season. Seasonal patterns guide our work:
• Winter brings migratory waterfowl such as ducks, scoters, and grebes.
• Spring ushers in young opossums, hummingbirds, ducklings, and orphaned squirrels.
• Summer sees waterfowl affected by botulism from the Salton Sea and local lakes, along with pelicans and cormorants suffering from domoic acid poisoning due to harmful red tide blooms.
• Fall brings injured grebes that crash-land on hardscapes like parking lots, mistaking them for water surfaces during migration.
Roughly 30% of the animals we treat arrive due to traumatic injuries caused by human interaction, including vehicle strikes, entanglement in urban debris, and domestic animal attacks. Another 5% suffer from infections, malnutrition, parasites, or toxicities like lead poisoning, rodenticides, and pesticides. Roughly 3% are pelicans and waterfowl affected by botulism, and 2% come to us as a result of oil spills.
Our patients are primarily birds (about two-thirds), but we also care for mammals—especially opossums, with over 1,500 admitted last year alone—and native reptiles. Every animal we admit represents a life saved and a second chance at freedom in the wild.
WWCC’s work not only improves outcomes for individual animals but contributes to the broader health of Southern California’s ecosystems. In a region where wildlife faces unprecedented pressures, our center stands as a vital and compassionate resource—and a powerful reminder that healing the environment also means healing its most vulnerable inhabitants.

The WWCC is currently operating on an annual budget of $950,000. Currently, our
monthly costs are about $80,000. In 2024, we treated Over 8,400 animals representing
220 different species. It costs an average of $125 to rehabilitate each animal.
Our water bill alone can cost over $3,000 per month.

We need funds to help feed and care for our increased patient load. Our annual
“Wildlife Baby Shower” is every May. We are planning
on having several fundraising events this year to help us raise funds. But to keep our doors
open, we need your help. Our incredible core of staff and volunteers have used unique
innovative methods to raise operational funds, which have kept up with the increase in
patient load. But we need more community help. You can feel confident that your
generous gift will make a difference. You will become part of our team and be part of the
mission of rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing native wildlife and educating the public
about our wild neighbors. Your donations will help fund our various educational
programs, help maintain and repair our equipment, and provide food, medication and
veterinary care to our patients. You can feel confident that every dollar goes toward
fulfilling our mission. The lives of wildlife are in your hands.

The Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center serves the entire 948 square miles of Orange County and beyond, including all of the bordering areas of the county.

Debbie McGuire, MBA
Executive Director, Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center

I will never forget the sinking feeling I experienced during the American Trader Oil Spill—coming face to face with oil-soaked birds struggling to survive. That moment changed my life forever. At the time, there was no permanent facility to help these poor creatures, and I knew I had found my calling.

It was on those oil-stained beaches of Huntington Beach that I met the late Greg Hickman and the late Dr. Joel Pasco—two individuals whose unwavering passion for wildlife inspired and shaped my journey. I began as a volunteer, then served as a board member, all while working full-time as a Hospital Administrator at a veterinary practice for 25 years.

When I retired in February 2020, I stepped fully into the role that had long been my passion. In March 2020, I became Executive Director of the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center—a project close to my heart for over 35 years.

Today, I remain committed to our mission: rescuing, rehabilitating, and releasing Southern California’s native wildlife. Our work extends beyond treatment; we also provide vital education programs for youth, interns, externs, and the public. Funding these programs supports the tools and resources we need, including lab supplies, equipment maintenance, classroom materials, and staffing.

Looking to the future, we are launching two capital campaigns to improve our facility: one to build a new Outdoor Aviary, and the other to update our Oil Spill Response and Rehabilitation Building—ensuring we’re ready for whatever environmental emergencies may come.

We are here for our community and for the wildlife that calls it home. Thanks to our dedicated staff and over 200 trained volunteers, we are prepared to respond whenever animals are in need.

Thank you for your continued support. We could not do this without you. Your generosity helps us give injured wildlife a second chance—and protects the fragile ecosystems we all share.

With heartfelt gratitude,
Debbie McGuire, MBA
Executive Director
Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center

I became a veterinarian because of my passion for wildlife conservation. My quest to help combat the world’s environmental issues has led me to local and international experience working with wildlife organizations, zoos, and veterinary hospitals. Since my years in undergraduate studies in biology and environmental studies, I have been searching for a role that would satisfy my thirst for making a positive impact. I have finally found it. The Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center (WWCC) is a facility that is bursting with potential, striving to address local environmental challenges from a variety of vantage points, and I am honored to be involved in this mission. Wildlife Conservation has been a lifelong passion of mine. I have always loved outdoor adventures and environmental activism, so it is a dream for me to work in wildlife medicine and see those efforts directly impact our local ecosystems.
In short, our mission at the WWCC is to facilitate “Rescue – Rehabilitation – and Release” of local wildlife. We prioritize native species that are critical to keeping our local environment healthy, with a particular focus on sensitive wetland ecosystems. Each year, we take in many thousands of injured and orphaned wild animals from members of the public and from animal control agencies. In 2023, while the world is still recovering from the COVID pandemic, we admitted approximately 7,444 patients, including 219 different species. Additionally, as a member of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network (OWCN) of UC Davis, we are poised and ready to mobilize a response to an oil spill on our beautiful coastline, though we hope to not need to use these resources.
As the veterinarian and medical director for WWCC, I direct treatment for our most critical medical cases. This often involves surgical removal of fishing hooks and fishing gear, bullets and pellets, wound repair and other trauma cases, orthopedic surgeries to repair fractures, and managing infectious disease outbreaks. Our dedicated team of wildlife technicians and volunteers provide medical treatments and supportive care, perform diagnostics, and assess our patients for readiness for return into the wild.
We are very proud of our achievements, and even more excited about the potential for our future impact. I am filled with excitement and optimism in my vision for the growth of this organization.
In the years to come, we are striving to continue to update our medical protocols and advance our medical options, including diagnostics and more advanced surgery. We want to expand our educational programs and publish research on some of our findings and treatments. I want to see us strengthen our reputation as a premiere wildlife conservation organization, particularly through continued collaboration with other wildlife and conservation organizations, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, local animal control agencies, and our surrounding communities.
To meet these goals, it is imperative that we expand our budget; our vision for growth of our programs depends on it. We all love living on the beautiful California coast, but it takes a lot of work to keep this environment healthy. The communities of Southern California that surround our center benefit from our services in the form of improved health and beauty of the local environment. We are primarily funded by individual donors and grants; we need continued and improved support to continue this work.
We deeply appreciate the support of donors, like you, who support our cause.
Thank you,
Dr. Wood