Bramble

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 have a center user (for now) but I did release for individual rehabbers. It is live on web, iOS, and Android and 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 centers, as well. Please feel free to reach out if you're interested! mandyhartmandev@gmail.com