Couple trades in trauma rooms for bird rescue on Saipan

Описание: The story of Saipan Bird Rescue and its founders is a story of how two physicians transformed from trauma care royalty to angels of winged patients soon after arriving on the island.

For decades, Dr. Tom Flowers and Dr. Roxanne Richter worked on the front lines of human trauma—treating fractures, critical injuries, and life-or-death emergencies.

When the couple arrived on Saipan two years ago, that experience found an unexpected extension—caring for the island’s injured and orphaned wild birds.

“Currently, I'm a physician in the family care clinic at the hospital here on Saipan. My background is mostly emergency medicine,” Flowers said. “I did emergency medicine for 32 years in the U.S. and also for six months here.”

Richter brings a similarly intensive background.

“I'm a global health professor, but I'm also a paramedic,” she said.

It was that shared trauma-care experience—combined with a long history of caring for birds—that led them to establish Saipan Bird Rescue, now the island’s only fully licensed wild bird rehabilitation operation.

“So that's why we decided to start Saipan Bird Rescue because both of us are… I'm a trauma queen, and he's a trauma king,” Richter said. “So we very much enjoy all the beautiful birds here. And when we realized that there wasn't a vet on the island who would take care of birds, we decided to put our knowledge to work.”

Soon after arriving on Saipan, the couple discovered a critical gap in animal care. While veterinarians occasionally visit the island, avian medicine is highly specialized.

“They weren't necessarily interested in doing what we call avian care or bird care, which is unfortunately very, very different from taking care of a dog or a cat,” Richter said.

Both physicians had extensive experience with birds long before moving to the CNMI.