Star Tribune
Minnesota wildlife hospital, one of the world’s busiest, plans expansion
One of the world’s busiest wildlife hospitals is located in a cramped building in a Roseville park, taking in nearly 20,000 patients a year from sleepy-eyed cottontails to majestic trumpeter swans.
After 20 years, it’s run out of space.
The nonprofit Wildlife Rehabilitation Center has purchased 22 acres in the Washington County city of Grant, with ambitious blueprints to spread its wings and build an environmentally friendly, $14 million campus focused on rehabilitation and orphaned wild animals, including raising 2,000 ducklings each spring.
“We always thought we needed a rehabilitation campus for our injured and orphaned young patients in the summertime,” said Executive Director Phil Jenni. “There is the emergency veterinary clinic, but most of our business, frankly, is the summer nursery business: baby bunnies, baby squirrels, baby ducklings. All of those things that aren’t necessarily injured, but they need help.”
The nonprofit will continue to operate its Roseville veterinary hospital, where all patients will be initially admitted and evaluated. Renee Schott, a veterinarian and the center’s wildlife director, said the additional space is desperately needed and will raise the standard of care for all patients. Currently, staff members are using every “nook and cranny” of the Roseville building and have space off-site for ducklings, she said.
“Having a new campus will help our healthy young patients grow up in a more wild environment. Right now, we are smack in the middle of the city,” Schott said. “It will also give them the space they need to grow and get away from our sick and ill patients.”
Founded in 1979 as a student club at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine, the center opened its Roseville location in 2003. The organization now has a $2.3 million annual budget and admits as many as 250 animals a day during busy months.
Eight veterinarians, more than 30 other staff members, 70 student interns and 600 volunteers provide care, which includes X-raying and setting broken bones, administering medications, testing for lead poisoning and other toxins and nurturing youngsters. Animals are released back into the wild near where they were first found.
The center has treated 200 species of animals, according to its records. While most are common to Minnesota and are not in peril, Jenni said the organization’s mission is fueled by a love of nature and a deep sense of compassion.
“People appreciate natural resources here and they appreciate wild animals,” he said. “It’s a way for them to act on values. It’s almost a secular religion. Who do we want to be as people and what kind of world do we want our kids to live in?”
Members of the public, as well as animal control officers, can drop off injured and orphaned animals free of charge. Families regularly come in together to drop off animals, Jenni said.
“The parents often say to us, ‘Thank you so much for having this place where I can model compassion and kindness to my kids,’ ” he said.
Jenni, 68, will step down as executive director at the end of the year after 20 years on the job, then serve as project manager for the Grant facility before retiring. The role will include fundraising and planning, with the goal of completing the campus in 2024.
Being good environmental stewards is a top priority, so the nonprofit is installing a state-of-the-art closed water filtration system, which will capture rainwater to fill 56 in-ground ponds needed to raise 2,000 ducklings each spring. That will take 165,000 gallons of water.
The system will allow water to be filtered and reused, keeping patients healthy and protecting natural resources.
“The highest level of design is for the ducklings,” Jenni said. “That water has to be cleaned every day.”
The facility will also have air filtration systems and geothermal heating and cooling technology. There are already outdoor cages in place for raccoons, squirrels and birds, positioned near the center of the property and out of sight of neighbors and passersby. The campus will not be open to the public.
“We want to be a positive part of the community,” Schott said. “We want to be flying under the radar as much as possible.”
The city of Grant approved a conditional use permit for the campus in 2020, despite some hand-wringing from neighbors about the possibility of increased traffic and other changes to the rural community.
“The city has received no complaints,” said Mayor Jeff Huber. “I think they’ve been a good neighbor.”
The project also has approval from the Rice Creek Watershed District, Jenni said.
The nonprofit has already invested $2.5 million in the property, he said. The next challenge is completing fundraising — a goal the organization is aiming to reach by spring of 2024, having secured a major donor.
With patient admissions up more than 34% during the COVID-19 pandemic, they’re hopeful the compassion for their work will continue to grow.
“We want to get everyone excited about this,” Jenni said.
Northern State 35, Concordia (St. Paul) 34: Wyatt Block’s 2-yard TD run and the PAT with 10 seconds remaining lifted the Wolves past the host Golden Bears. Block’s touchdown capped an 11-play, 72-yard drive by the Wolves, who trailed 24-7 in the second quarter. Jeff Isotalo-McGuire’s 34-yard field goal with three minutes, 32 seconds remaining gave the Golden Bears a 34-28 lead.
Winona State 31, Bemidji State 28: Cade Stenstrom rushed for two TDs and passed for 150 yards and a TD to help the host Warriors outlast the Beavers. Stenstrom’s 1-yard TD run and the PAT with two minutes, 10 seconds remaining gave the Warriors a 31-21 lead. The Beavers responded with an 11-play, 93-yard drive to pull within 31-28 with 18 seconds remaining but the Warriors recovered the ensuing kickoff.
Div. I-AA
North Dakota State 59, Murray State 6: The top-ranked Bison built a 42-3 lead in the first half and went on to defeat the host Racers in Murray, Ken. CharMar Brown ran for 97 yards and three TDs for the Bison.
South Dakota State 20, South Dakota 17 (OT): Amar Johnson’s 3-yard TD run in overtime lifted the host Jackrabbits to the victory. The Coyotes opened the OT with a 40-yard field goal.
Youngstown State 41, North Dakota 40 (OT): The host Penguins went first in OT and scored and then stopped North Dakota’s two-point conversion to hold on for the victory. The Penguins sent the game into OT on a 35-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining.
Div. III
Augsburg 35, St. Olaf 34 (OT): The host Auggies stopped a two-point conversion in overtime to outlast the Oles. The Auggies went first in the overtime and scored on a 25-yard pass from Ryan Harvey to Tyrone Wilson. It was Harvey’s fifth TD pass — the fourth to Wilson. After the Auggies’ PAT, the Oles scored on a 25-yard TD pass from Theo Doran to Braden Menz. But the Oles’ pass attempt for the conversion failed.
After splitting their two-game West Coast trip to begin the season, the Wolves improved to 2-1 with a 112-101 win over Toronto in their home opener. It was a wire-to-wire win that featured some strong bursts of play from the Wolves and other times when their decision-making was suspect. But those moments when they were on, specifically the start of the game and most of the third quarter, were enough to carry them against a shorthanded Raptors team that was without RJ Barrett, Bruce Brown and Immanuel Quickley.
Julius Randle had 24 points while Anthony Edwards had 24 on 21 shot attempts. Donte DiVincenzo had 16 off the bench. Nickeil Alexander-Walker left the game in the fourth quarter and did not return, though he was in the bench area for the final minutes after going to the locker room briefly.
The Wolves’ starting lineup had its best stretch of basketball on the season after that unit started off sluggish in the first two games. Mike Conley, who was 3-for-16 to open the year, hit two early threes to set the tone, though Conley would finish 2-for-8.
Donte DiVincenzo replaced him at point guard halfway through the quarter and continued the hot shooting from the point guard slot with three threes of his own. The Wolves forced five Toronto turnovers and had a 32-18 lead after one.
Coach Chris Finch toyed with some different lineup combinations in the first half as he had Conley and DiVincenzo begin the quarter together while having Joe Ingles run the point later in the quarter. It led to an uneven second, and the Wolves led 56-44 at halftime.
But the Wolves played inspired coming out of the break. Jaden McDaniels, who didn’t take a shot in the first half, had nine points in the opening minutes of the third. Edwards hit a pair of threes as they pushed their lead to 22. The Wolves weren’t sharp closing the night, and the Raptors had the game within right inside of two minutes, but the Wolves had built enough of a cushion.
Rudy Gobert. Gobert had 15 points and 13 rebounds and was the beneficiary of some lobs from his teammates like Edwards, Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Joe Ingles. Gobert also finished with four blocks.
Gobert had two blocks on one possession in the fourth quarter that got the crowd off its feet and Gobert pounding his chest. Gobert blocked D.J. Carton and Jamison Battle.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
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