The mission of the St. Francis Center is threefold; to provide rescue services to native orphaned and/or injured wildlife, to provide the necessary medical and supportive care for those animals and return them to the wild, and to educate the general public about wildlife and their habitats so they can form a peaceful coexistence with their wild neighbors. We take in hundreds of animals of all species except those excluded by our Category 2 permits as governed by the Ohio Division of Wildlife and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. We have both state and federal permits for rehabilitation and education. Veterinary services are provided by Dr. Suzanne Terrant at the Johnstown Animal Hospital. We are located in a very rural area just outside Bellville, Ohio on about 15 acres of forest and meadowland that includes a 1.5 acre lake. We are not open to the general public except by appointment as we are primarily a rehabilitation center and we insist on a stress free environment for our animals to recover. It's a great place to rehabilitate if you are an injured wild animal.

If you find an animal that you think needs help you should call your local rehabilitation center. If the animal is obviously injured, you may be asked to attempt to capture it and transport it to your local center or at least house it in a safe location until it can be picked up. Injured animals have a way of evading humans and in the time it takes for a team to respond to your call, that animal may crawl or drag itself away and hide. If you are unable to capture it, if you could at least trap it under a trash can or plastic tub and weight the top it will keep the animal from getting away. If it is an adult animal, click here for safe capture techniques. If it is a baby animal and it is uninjured, first try to reunite it with its mother. Click here for instructions. If it is injured or you know the mother is dead, the babies will need to be kept warm until they can be taken to the clinic. Click here for instructions. Under no circumstances should you attempt to feed the babies or try to raise them yourself or keep them as pets. It is illegal and can be prosecuted under the poaching laws. It is also a skilled task and needs to be done by someone who has been trained and knows what they are doing. Many baby animals have been helped to death by the very people who are trying to save them. Keeping them as pets is cruel. It robs them of their wildness and any opportunity to interact with their own kind or ever have a family. Imagine how you would feel if you had been kept as a pet by a nice family of horses and were provided all the necessary food and shelter you could ever need but could never communicate with another human as long as you lived...