SOLANA BEACH — When veterinarian Erica Ellis joined Academy Animal Hospital as the new medical director in early 2025, she had one stipulation — that she could open a small wildlife hospital onsite to serve non-domesticated animals.
Nearly a year later, after obtaining the required state and local permits, Shalom Wildlife Hospital is open and ready to receive wildlife patients weighing 10 pounds or less, including birds, squirrels, baby rabbits, opossums, skunks, and raccoons.
Ellis — who lives in Oceanside with her son, daughter, various pets and fostered animals — has been a veterinarian and certified wildlife rehabilitator since 2011. She worked as a relief and part-time veterinarian at the Academy before becoming a medical director.
Before that, she worked for several years as a veterinarian in Maryland and spent a year as an intern at The Raptor Center and Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Minnesota.
She wanted to create another place for people to bring in injured or sick, wild animals in the North County area, where they could have a second chance.
“For 95-plus percent of animals that come into a wildlife hospital, it’s because of human interaction — maybe a pet ate their mom, or they flew into a window, or got hit by a car, got tangled up in wire or fishing line, or lead poisoning. It’s all these things that we’ve done,” Ellis said. “That’s part of why I named it Shalom, because ‘shalom’ is peace, but it’s also restoration and wholeness. It’s a way to contribute in a positive way to these little lives when there’s been so much negative and so much harm.”
In the Solana Beach area, the next-closest place where people can bring in injured wild animals is Project Wildlife in San Diego. Because it is a large center, it often experiences capacity issues. Ellis sought to provide an additional facility for animal care.
With the center now open, Ellis is raising awareness of the hospital to help more animals.
When someone brings an animal to Shalom, the hospital will gather information on where the animal was found, what caused the injury, whether it has had any food, water, or medication, and whether it has interacted with any humans or pets.
The animal will then be placed into a cardboard box while still outside – “Because what I don’t need is for a songbird to get loose and get eaten by one of our patients,” Ellis said – and then brought into the treatment area.
If the injury is not critical, the animal will be given time to decompress, as it likely has not been in a car or a building before and is stressed.
Located in a small room separate from the rest of the hospital, the wildlife treatment area contains various crates and containers for birds and other animals, warming pads for baby animals, food donated by Sprouts, medical equipment, and other essentials.
“Hopefully people will know that we’re here, and we can help out these little critters,” Ellis said.
Shalom’s first patient was a pigeon brought in after being attacked by a Cooper’s hawk, which had an infected wound. The pigeon sadly died, but Ellis and her team provided anesthesia, pain medication, x-rays, and cleaned its wounds.
They have also treated a hummingbird that experienced head trauma.
If an animal is fit for release after its visit, Shalom Wildlife Hospital will often return it to the location where it was found.
Some animals require long-term support to ensure they can survive before release. In such cases, Ellis said they will rely on outside certified rehabilitation centers.
“Some animals are going to need conditioning, and that’s just kind of like PT for humans,” Ellis said. “They need to build some more muscle and maybe lose some fat so that they can go out into the wild and not get killed by predators, or if they are a predator, so they can kill.”
After the hospital has been open for two years, it can start sending animal patients to satellite locations for further care. One example is a rescue that cares for rabbits, where baby rabbits brought into Shalom could nurse from a mother rabbit rather than being fed by a human volunteer.
Volunteers have been crucial to helping out. Ellis anticipates that in the next few months, Shalom Wildlife Hospital will need more volunteers who can assist with caring for small animals that come in.
“Come spring, we will definitely need people who are going to hand-feed the bunnies and squirrels and possums and racoons,” Ellis said. “There will be orphans, and they just need a bunch of food, basically.”
Since Ellis became medical director, Academy Animal Hospital has also been certified as a “fear-free” facility. This means staff have undergone special training to reduce fear, anxiety and stress in their patients, with a focus on listening to the animal’s needs and avoiding unnecessary treatment if it causes distress.
A fear-free facility could also perform examinations outside if it reduces stress, use the floor instead of a table, or allow a brief decompression period before treatment.
“We can get creative with those things,” Ellis said. “We care about consent.”
Shalom Wildlife Hospital is located at 741 Academy Drive in Solana Beach. For more information, visit shalomwildlifehospital.org.
