Bramble

Portfolio Spotlight: Wildlife Rehabilitation Management App

I've spent a few summers now volunteering with wildlife rehabilitation centers from Florida to North Carolina. It is such a rewarding experience, but also emotionally draining and challenging to manage. This last summer, I cared for a dozen newborns in my home (mostly squirrels and opossums) and tracking their care was an ongoing challenge.

I built this app while rehabbing. I wanted to capture all of the important data points you need to track while caring for an animal. It also allows you to archive a care doc for future reference, convert measurements for medications, and track overall care numbers for legal documentation. I also started a center user which had more features:

Animals in Need Board – Post animals needing care or transport. Team members update status in real-time: "calling," "transporting," or "done." No more missed connections.

Comprehensive Tracking – From intake to release, multiple caregivers can update the same animal's record, creating complete medical histories.

Smart Scheduling – Manage feeding schedules, volunteer shifts, and care tasks with push notifications that ensure nothing gets missed.

I built the mobile app with React Native, Expo, and Firebase for real-time sync, offline functionality, and secure cloud storage. I also built a web app using React/ Remix/ React Router and Firebase.

Something unique with this project for me was deciding if this was something I wanted to share as a production app. I went through months of user testing and gathering data from surveys from rehabbers. I learned so much about assumptions made in making a product and the diversity of user experience. I spoke to rehabbers in the US and UK, working with mammals, reptiles, and birds. Every single person I spoke to had their own workflow, priorities, and unique asks for a tracking app. Every state requires slightly different information to be captured and shared on demand if they ask. After six months of user feedback, I decided not to make this a public product. I built the mobile apps and had it live on IOS and was mid-testing on Android. I did end up releasing the web application for individuals only and will continue to capture feedback to see if this app is what users really need.

While it's live, you can view it here! I'd love to pass this work along to someone/ an org that wants to spend the time to grow a user base and polish these features to meet the needs of most. Please feel free to reach out if you're interested! mandyhartmandev@gmail.com