MANSFIELD – Over 160 community donors and elected officials celebrated the completion Friday of the unique Treehouse Classroom of the Ohio Bird Sanctuary, the major resource of avian, nature, and conservation expertise and education in Ohio.
“The already-funded Treehouse Classroom is the Sanctuary’s first step in the development of capital projects that will advance our mission and expanding role in outdoor education,” said Gail Laux, founder and executive director.
A $3 million project has been developed to renovate buildings, create two additions on the Visitor Center, upgrade systems, and expand the trail system to improve accessibility. The Sanctuary’s first-ever capital campaign is called Spreading Our Wings and has officially begun.
This summer’s construction of the Treehouse Classroom by the Nelson crew of Treehouse Masters and Animal Planet fame, has been a labor of love for Laux.
Laux’s late daughter, Samantha, stricken young by a rare disease that took her life at age 23, had spent her early years climbing trees and her last years in a wheelchair.
“This is for her,” Laux said.
The Treehouse Classroom will hold nature education classes for thousands of children and adults, including those in wheelchairs or pushing strollers.
Laux and her husband, Chris, founded the Sanctuary 34 years ago on their family farm near Bellville. Within a decade, it had become THE place to take injured birds of prey in Ohio. Outgrowing that location, the Sanctuary was moved to its current home on 93 acres of a former Boy Scout camp.
Near the marshlands of the Clear Fork Reservoir off Orweiler Road, the Ohio Bird Sanctuary offers professional care for injured, orphaned, and displaced native birds like eagles, hawks, and owls.
For many of those birds that can’t be released to the wild, the Sanctuary provides a “living museum” of birds in enclosures with natural habitat. The Sanctuary also features a songbird aviary so visitors can feed birds by hand and a nature preserve with four miles of woodland hiking trails.
“We take care of birds and provide educational nature programming and outreach for all ages and abilities,” Laux said. Thousands of school children visit the Sanctuary for field trips, summer camp, and classes each year. The Sanctuary’s hiking trails, one now with a 600-square-foot Treehouse Classroom overhead, are also popular among the more than 30,000 annual visitors and nature enthusiasts.
“We’ve doubled the number of visitors over the last few years, and we had 500 bird care cases and 2,500 inquiries in 2020,” Laux said. Those numbers will be higher in 2021 as people from all over Ohio and surrounding states enjoy their family vacations closer to home. Half of the Sanctuary’s visitors are from outside of north central Ohio. More than 3,000 come from out of Ohio.
“We have grown so much in numbers of visitors, bird care cases, general inquiries, classes and outreach programs that our growth has outpaced our staffing and aging facilities,” said Laux, adding that the innovative Treehouse Classroom is the beginning of a strategic transformation that will include building renovations, infrastructure upgrades, and the expansion of its trail system to include a two-level, marsh-view overlook with a quarter-mile trail that will be accessible by wheelchairs and strollers.
“We’ll also put two additions on our Visitor Center: One will significantly increase the size of our bird care clinic, and the other will allow us to create a baby-bird nursery so visitors can watch the activity,” Laux said.
Adjacent to the Sanctuary’s Education Center, a second unit of enclosures with a small presentation area will be used for the care of native birds that are used for nature programming and outreach.
“We are hopeful that we will raise $3 million during our ‘Wings’ campaign to be able to initiate a permanent savings fund to help us cover future maintenance expenses,” Laux said, adding that this campaign already has raised more than $700,000 of its goal.
Chriss Harris has developed and is directing the campaign.
Members of Harris’ Wings Campaign Committee include Sanctuary board members Donnie Clark (owner, Elzy Milling and Trade), Julie Schwartz (head of school, Discovery School), and David Siebold (retired professional engineer-asset integrity/risk management), Sanctuary Operations Director Emily Smith, and Laux. Event co- chairs are board members Valerie Ashcraft (RFME Insurance Co. insurance advisor) and Nikki Lewis (Chamber Foundation manager).
Due to rainy weather impacting a few finishing details of the Treehouse Classroom, the opening has been delayed. Opening dates for members and the public will be announced later.
The Sanctuary with its trails, bird enclosures, and songbird aviary is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and noon to 4 on Sundays. It is closed on Mondays and holidays. The Treehouse Classroom will only be open to members and visitors as noted above.
SANCTUARY MISSION AND HISTORY
The mission of the Ohio Bird Sanctuary is to create an environment of learning and interaction with nature that generates within people a desire to be compassionate and good citizens of our natural world. At the Sanctuary, this is accomplished by providing innovative, environmental education and modeling stewardship of wildlife and natural resources.
The mission is carried out by providing three primary services: Professional care for injured, orphaned, and displaced native birds, educational nature programming for all ages, and the operation of a nature preserve and living museum that has been thoughtfully designed for accessibility.
Originally called the Richland County Raptor Rehabilitation Center, the organization was established as a nonprofit in 1988 by biologist Gail Laux and her husband, Chris, on their family farm near Bellville. Within a decade, the Sanctuary had become known as THE place to bring injured and orphaned birds in Ohio.
By 1997, the Sanctuary had outgrown the farm and moved to its current home on Orweiler Road near the headwaters and marshlands of Clear Fork Reservoir. This property was purchased by the Sanctuary from the Heart of Ohio Boy Scout Council (part of it had been known as Camp Avery Hand).
The Sanctuary was opened to the public in 1999. More than 30,000 people visit the Sanctuary annually, and the numbers of visitors and memberships are growing considerably with the Sanctuary’s focus on innovative upgrades, educational quality, and the public’s increasing interest in preservation and conservation.
The Ohio Bird Sanctuary’s Board of Trustees include Preston Boyd, Julie Schwartz, Zackary Bramlage, Valerie Ashcraft, Sarah Mussman, Nikki Lewis, Alex Kulka, Philip Chatman, Donnie Clark, and David Siebold.
The Ohio Bird Sanctuary currently welcomes more than 30,000 visitors and school children to the Sanctuary each year for tours and educational programs, class field trips, summer camps, and special events. We are open to the public year-round, six days per week, with all of our displays and buildings, including the new Treehouse Classroom, accessible to the disabled.
