​Julia Coey’s Animal Hospital: Rescuing Urban Wildlife covers the easily overlooked world of wildlife rehabilitation efforts around the world.  Coey focuses on city animals such as birds, squirrels, raccoons, and skunks that have been injured or orphaned, often because of human interference. Unlike zoos or wildlife sanctuaries that are long-term animal homes, the goal of wildlife rehabilitation is to help nurse animals back to health before releasing them back into the wild.  The book starts with an introduction to understanding wildlife rehabilitation and its importance before we see these rehabilitation efforts in action through the eyes of the Toronto Wildlife Centre whose hotline fields tens of thousands of calls every year.

The book is filled with striking, full colour photos that filled my heart with love (a pile of baby raccoons) and heartache (a poor helpless skunk whose head got trapped in a plastic dessert lid-– but don’t worry, he was saved!).  It was inspiring to read about these champions of nature and learn new wildlife facts. Did you know 20% of the time squirrels are just sneakily pretending to bury nuts to trick other squirrels or birds who might be watching?  Animal Hospital was a fascinating and enlightening read that’s definitely worth picking up!

-Reviewed by Jamie Fong

Coming to the Red Cedar Gala on May 6 to see if Animal Hospital is a winner? Please RSVP to redcedaraward@gmail.com Hope to see you there!