Raccoons!

I want to make a post dedicated entirely to raccoons. These impish little punks are so endearing, you can't help but love them. They are inquisitive and each have unique personalities. They will use their little hands to pull anything sitting next to their cage inside to play with. They wash their food before they eat it.

They always sleep in piles, and when they don't have another raccoon to cuddle, will resort to this:

I love you, water bowl.

When first born, they are no larger than the size of a hamster. But they still have the adorable striped tail and mask. Just look at his little paws.

Try and resist the cute, I dare you.

They would make terrible pets, but I really enjoy raising them at work. They are little trouble makers, feisty and far too curious. Absolutely marvelous animals.

The most livid I have ever been in my life

See this, kids? This is why you don't raise wildlife without a license. Or a brain. I don't recall feeling this absolutely infuriated in my life. This person's "caring" probably gave this baby raccoon metabolic bone disease.

I don't care how cute they are. I don't care how much you want it for a pet. I don't care how hard it would be on your kids to give whatever fluffy creature you found to a rehabber. Not only is it dangerous, illegal, and expensive for you and your family, you will likely harm the animal in the process. If it is a rabies vector species and the health department finds out you have handled it without gloves, guess who gets beheaded and tested for rabies? By some unjust law of man, not the idiot who picked up the skunk/raccoon/bat with their bare hands.

TL;DR: Abuse wildlife and I will find you and punch you in the face.

Babies!

Well, folks, I have a new camera. And you all know what that means: tons of new pictures!

We have a few new creatures I would like to highlight. First of all, this newly hatched bobwhite quail. I have never even seen an adult, but this little guy got separated from his family and now lives in our bird room.

He makes this tiny peeping sound whenever you open his incubator. He is what you call precocial, where he is born ready to run and forage for himself.

Remember the famous lyrics from Pocahontas? "Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon, or asked a grinning bobcat why he grins?"

I always was skeptical of that line, because I had never seen a bobcat, much less one that smiled. Well, bobcats actually grin.

Bobette is my favorite animal on the property, I'll be honest. How could she not be, with that face?


You know what doesn't get enough love? Opossums. Everyone thinks they are a pest, or dirty. But clearly, not everyone has encountered baby possums.

They are my favorite when they are about hamster sized. Still small enough to not care if you need to hold them to feed them or clean their cages, but old enough to have personalities.

They have prehensile tails, and stick to everything like velcro. Seriously, how can you resist that face?

Bird Mom

Barred Owl

Well, I have been officially designated bird mom during the bird specialist's days off. They need to be fed every half an hour, and starlings really make an impressive sound.

But they really do have fascinating personalities. We have a blue jay that has been at the center for over a year. He can mimic all kinds of sounds, from crows to red shouldered hawks. Today, he made puppy whimper noises along with sounds like the doors opening.

The raptors are still one of my favorite animals to work with. I mean really, who can resist this face?

Bobette, who is precious.

And then there is one of my favorite personalities on the property: Bobette. A little bobcat that came in with her brother, she is adorable. She is exactly like a house kitten, but with talons and sharper teeth. But she has the same curiosity and daring as a normal kitten. It can be hard to take pictures of her or feed her because she really is too fond of shoelaces.

I know we aren't supposed to, but I find myself getting a little attached to some of the animals. They are adorable and inquisitive, often too much for their own good. This really is a fantastically rewarding field, I am definitely enjoying it, even during the harder parts.

Loss

Today was 104 degrees.

I was in charge of the bird area. One of the volunteers came up to me and said, "One of the birds is lying on its back!" so I ran to the cage and there was a robin I was certain was dead. He just came in and wasn't eating well.

So I picked him up and he blinked and lifted his head a little. I got a little bit of fluids into him, but he passed away while I was holding him.

I'm not even going to try to counter that with a cute story or witty comment.

Goaty

There is a character of the Rehab crew that I have not yet introduced. For the sake of anonymity, I can't introduce people, but this lady deserves a note.

Meet Goaty! She's actually secretly evil, and tries to challenge everyone to a head-butting contest. But will occasionally tolerate petting.

She has a rather peculiar fear of water, as well. Today I came outside and found her in the golf cart and couldn't resist taking a picture.

It was a really easy day at work today, we finished all of our tasks early. However, while we were checking in animals that had been dropped off at the shelter, there was a dove with a severely broken humorous. Between the nearly 100 degree heat, being dehydrated, probably locking my knees, and seeing the inside of a bird's wing, I started getting tunnel vision and had to pass the dove to my boss and go sit down for a while.

I have no idea why that specific sight got to me, considering the other nasty cases that come in to wildlife rehab centers. I'm told girls have actually passed out before, so at least that didn't fully happen.

Overall, though, not a bad day. I'm starting to get the hang of things.

Opposites

This is the second fawn in a week with ticks covering the eyes

I was off work today, but dropped in because my boss and I were supposed to do a kayak release of some opossums tonight. However, when I got there, they were pulling ticks off of this little guy's eyes.

So, I didn't get to kayak today. This is the second deer in a week with this problem. Luckily, their eyes should retain sight, once the vet sees them. The problem is, fawns just sit in grass, and they don't have any way to keep ticks off of themselves.

This, or other injuries, are the only reasons to move a fawn! Otherwise it is likely kidnapping and you just don't see mom.

So that is one of the sad sides to work. For some brain-bleach, here's a little duckling I had to hold while its cage was cleaned out.

Faith

If I were a psychologist, I would leave my office and spend a week at a wildlife center.

You have your faith in humanity shredded and restored within minutes of each other. For example, yesterday, I got a phone call about an injured gosling. Below is its story.

A man was driving behind an SUV when he saw a family of Canada Geese on the road. The SUV never even touched the brakes, and it plowed through them without a second thought. The car behind him, the driver who called us, stopped to see if any survived.

Most of the family was beyond help, but one little gosling was still alive. A second driver, who also saw the incident, pulled over. The owner of that car actually took the shirt off of his back to wrap the young goose in.

The first driver put the gosling in his car and drove an hour to the wildlife center at 8pm to rescue this little goose. The driver stayed to help calm him while we were giving him medicine and called back this morning to check up on it.

People can be absurdly insensitive and miraculously caring.

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There was also a high-school aged girl who brought in an incredibly tiny baby songbird today. I have no other way to describe her other than filled with compassion. Apparently, she had raised other baby birds (illegally) before, but knew this one was too tiny. I explained everything about not keeping them as pets, medical care, etc, which she accepted but not necessarily happily.

(Note: It's misplaced caring, please always take injured animals to someone with a license and stock of proper food and medicine. If you think they are orphaned, leave them be, in all likelihood the parents are around, just not by it.)

What struck me is, when my boss put a little half centimeter splint on this bird's tiny leg, the girl actually started crying. Maybe this hit me because that's how I started in this field: a whole lot of passion for helping animals but no resources to do it. I made sure she knew she could volunteer here or at the animal shelter in her town. I would bet quite a bit of money that she will end up in an animal-related field.

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I'll end stories on a hopeful note. We got a tiny fawn in today, whose eyes were engulfed by ticks. She was our 2000th animal in this year. I have high hopes for the little gal, she looked strong other than the eye problem. It amazes me, the different medical tricks my boss knows. I should have an update on the fawn in about a week, which is supposed to be about how long it will take to fix her eyes.

Release day

After working 57 hours in 7 days, I have had a lovely two day long break. Normally it'll be 40 hours in 5 days, it's just that I worked my normal days off for training.

I got to go on my first release on Tuesday! 20+ oppossoms and one cottontail. The bunny was ready to go and ran into the woods as fast as possible. The possoms usually stayed in their cages, I had to pull a few out that just didn't want to leave.

Overall, it was a pretty good end to my first week, and helped compensate for the harder parts.

Sorry guys, no pictures for a while, I am camera-less for a few pay checks.

Day 5

I am slowly getting into the rhythm of things at the center. Charts are making more sense, I am remembering who gets what food, and I'm feeling slightly less lost. I still can't match any of the other interns for pace, but I'm sure that will come with time.

It has been a unique introduction to the world of wildlife rehab. I was just sort of thrown into the mix, as it is best to learn on the job, it isn't the sort of thing you learn from books.



Mostly I work in the nursery, which involves regular feeding of baby mammals and some raptors. It is a unique situation, you save both tiny mammals and creatures that live off of tiny mammals. No, they never mix, it is just a part of the controversy surrounding rehab.

Today was a particularly strange day. We lost one of our baby bobcats, and it really got to everyone. I had a (very, very ill) baby raccoon pass within a minute of me taking him out to give him fluids because he looked so dehydrated. That was especially hard because he was at least attempting solid food yesterday. It was not at all surprising, but it was still very difficult.

However, I got permission to take pictures of the otters after my shift for the website. They are my favorite animal. They are inquisitive, adorable, and a little bit feisty.

They love to run around their enclosure and wrestle with each other. We only had one before, now we have 3 new ones.

Overall, it is a very rewarding job. My boss and coworkers are awesome, and the shifts go quickly because there is so much to do.

A unique day

Welcome to the life of a wildlife rehabilitation intern! It can be thrilling, it can be sad. This is meant to be a look behind the scenes.

There will be a whole lot of cute and fluffy, with a bit of a tinge of disappointment, which basically sums up our average day.

So, disclaimer. This will not be all rainbows and unicorns. It will occasionally qualify as NSFL. Occasionally the animal's antics will leave you in fits of giggles. Depends on the moment, really.

"Every animal that comes to us would have died in the wild. Some times all we can do is make them comfortable, some times we can bring them back from the brink and release them. We help all of them, even if we can't save all of them."