Lindsay Wildlife Museum is a family museum and wildlife rehabilitation center in Walnut Creek, California. The museum is one of the oldest wildlife rehab centers in the United States, and a popular family museum in the San Francisco East Bay Area. Founded in Walnut Creek in 1955, the museum’s programs “connect people with wildlife to inspire responsibility and respect for the world we share.” The museum houses hands-on discovery room for children, a pet education section with small domestic animals and changing natural history and art exhibits. The on-site wildlife rehabilitation center treats nearly 6,000 injured or orphaned wild animals each year.
Lindsay Wildlife Museum was founded in 1955 by Alexander Lindsay as the Diablo Junior Museum. It became the Alexander Lindsay Junior Museum in 1962 after Alexander Lindsay died at 44. In 1965 it moved to a water-pump house in Larkey Park in Walnut Creek. In 1970 the museum started the first formal wildlife rehabilitation program in the United States. In 1986 the City of Walnut Creek gave up operations and the museum became an independently operated not-for-profit organization. The next year "Junior" was dropped from the title, making it The Lindsay Museum. In 1993 the museum moved to a newly built 28,000-square-foot (2,600 m2) museum near the old pump house. Three years later the name was changed to Lindsay Wildlife Museum.
The wildlife rehabilitation center at the museum receives about 6,000 California native wild animals every year. They treat animals that have been poisoned, hit by cars, and many other often human-related injuries. They also care for orphaned young. After being treated, an animal is released back into the wild. If it cannot be safely released it may join the museum as an "animal ambassador." As many animals brought to the hospital are cat-caught, the museum strongly encourages visitors to keep their cats indoors.