QUECHEE, Vt. (AP) – The Vermont Institute of Natural Science opens its new education center on the banks of the Ottauquechee River this week.

The new raptor exhibit, which opens Saturday, will include 17 pens for birds of prey too injured to be released in the wild – including falcons, hawks, owls and eagles.

The center will have trails to the Ottauquechee River and a waterfowl viewing area. Other trails will connect the center with the neighboring Quechee State Park and Quechee Gorge.

VINS has spent $8 million on the Quechee site.

A second phase of the project, which will get underway when the institute can raise the money for it, will include a 26,000-square-foot building near the river.

VINS has 50 staff members, thousands of volunteers, and an annual operating budget of $2.1 million, said Reading dentist David Laughlin, who helped start VINS more than 30 years ago.

VINS officials recently decided to move the entire staff to Quechee, instead of keeping them at the original VINS site in Woodstock as planned. The nonprofit group has not yet decided what it will do with the Woodstock property.

, said Laughlin and Lingelbach.

AP-ES-06-06-04 1530EDT