SARATOGA — Billionaire Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison is teaming with animal welfare advocates to create a one-of-a-kind wildlife refuge, rehabilitation and education center on a long abandoned quarry in the Santa Cruz Mountains above Saratoga.

While Ellison has lent his wealth to helping to save endangered wildlife overseas, including gorillas and elephants, his latest venture, with the Peninsula Humane Society — quietly in the works for five years — aims to protect some of nature’s humbler creatures, including bugs, snakes and salamanders.

Wildlife experts said it’s going to be a huge boon for an underserved local population, a facility for mending broken wings and torn hides, where wild animal orphans can go for care and a coop until they can be returned to nature. Add to that a hands-on educational component and a breeding center for at-risk species, and the result is a unique one-stop shop dedicated to local fauna.

Ken White of the Peninsula Humane Society, which partnered with the Lawrence Ellison Foundation to create the proposed Conservation Center for Wildlife Care, said its captive breeding facility will focus on species that don’t get the name recognition — or attention — as what he called “charismatic” creatures such as the California condor or African lion.

“It’s truly wonderful how people have committed to the condor, and if we came to see it go extinct it would be a very graphic, very philosophical thing,” he said. “But if we saw the hummingbirds and the bees go extinct, then life for all would end.”

Thus, the breeding center will be dedicated to invertebrates — think bugs and butterflies — and reptiles and amphibians such as the San Francisco garter snake and the Pacific giant salamander. But if the breeding facility has a poster child, it could well be Lange’s metalmark butterfly, a tiny orange-and-black flutterer that lives solely amid sandy dunes in Antioch whose numbers at the last count were in double digits.

Chris Nagano, chief of the endangered species division with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, said conservation scientists are at the point where they “need to make more butterflies” by breeding them at the conservation center, which would play a key role in saving the metalmark at the first facility of its kind designed specifically for invertebrates.

“That’s why Saratoga is going to be so great,” Nagano said, adding that Ellison has made it clear that he wants the facility to be a top-notch model for others to follow. “People from all over the world will be looking at this.”

White only feared that with completion still years away, they may be too late for the metalmark, which has been the focus of intensive preservation efforts for years but hasn’t seen a significant increase in numbers since the population count plunged from 2,300 in 1999 to 45 in 2006.

The conservation center will serve Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Francisco counties, with about 8,500 “patients” a year. White said wild animal intake centers such as the one at the Humane Society’s Burlingame facility or the Silicon Valley Wildlife Center in East San Jose provide one of the services that will be offered at the new facility. And there are wildlife museums such as CuriOddysey at Coyote Point or the Randall Museum in San Francisco that expose kids to nature. Other facilities multitask with a rehabilitation center and education, such as the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek or Sulfur Creek Nature Center in Hayward. But the Saratoga facility will have that and more.

“In some way, each has a bit and piece of what we’re going to have,” White said. “But I don’t know of a model that has all the pieces.”

The conservation center will occupy 170 acres of woodland that was historically used for a quarry, logging and residential purposes. There’s currently a barn and two unused cottages on the site.

Conservationists said they believe that with steps such as planting multiple oak trees for each of the 250 expected to be removed, the project will bring a worthy and needed cause to the canyon.

“The land is not a pristine area,” said Alice Kaufman of the Committee for Green Foothills. “It is a former quarry. We definitely took a good hard look at the project and felt they had made a really good effort in minimizing the disturbed area.”

The biggest building will take up about 60,000 square feet — a large supermarket is about 40,000 square feet — with additional structures bringing up the total to 80,000 square feet. An existing path that winds up the hill will pass by 50 rehabilitation enclosures as well as the breeding center. There will be a greenhouse and atrium used for growing organic food for the creatures and two residences — one for the site’s caretaker and one to accommodate guest lecturers, researchers and specialists.

The site is densely wooded, and Bart Hechtman, a land-use lawyer representing the proposed center, said it will be well concealed from passers-by on Highway 9 and invisible from the valley floor. Traffic impacts are also deemed minimal, with a staff of 60 and the education portion maxing out at 150 people per day, in three shifts of 50.

Supervisor Joe Simitian, who oversees the area where the facility is being built, said he first heard about the project in June when he was approached by representatives from the Humane Society. Opposition has been limited to a petition signed by residents of nine nearby homes, who cited concerns about tree removal, water consumption, increased traffic and neighborhood safety. However, nobody appealed the planning commission’s approval of the project in November.

“So far, they appear to have dotted all their I’s and crossed all their T’s,” Simitian said of the applicant.

Representatives from the Larry Ellison Foundation were not available for comment, and it is unclear how much of the cost the world’s fifth-richest man — with assets estimated at $54 billion — has footed so far. It isn’t his first foray into animal issues. The former Oracle CEO is known for high-profile endeavors such as America’s Cup and buying an entire Hawaiian island, but along with his noted pursuit of medical research to combat aging, he’s given to international causes aimed at saving gorillas and fighting ivory poachers. He previously donated $3 million to the Peninsula Humane Society to help build its Burlingame headquarters, and those involved with the new project suggested his contribution will be substantial.

White did not have a figure for the final price tag but said such a facility generally costs about $600 a square foot, which would bring it near the $50 million mark. He said that given the difficulties of fundraising, a center such as this one is only possible by a single-source donation.

“Almost all our gifts are for $20 or $50 or $100,” White said. “We don’t see a lot of gifts where there’s a comma in the numbers.”

Continued staffing and upkeep will be paid for by Humane Society fundraising and expected ongoing interest from the foundation, White said. The foundation also bought the land, estimated to be worth $5.5 million, for the purpose of creating the center.

“It’s a very significant contribution,” he said. “He has been very kind to this organization. There’s not enough money for any charitable causes, and there’s even less for those involving animals. And among those causes, ones benefiting local wildlife are at the bottom.”

Contact Eric Kurhi at 408-920-5852. Follow him at Twitter.com/erickurhi.