To begin on a note still about animals, the fawns were finally released! We loaded them into a horse trailer and took them to a field by a local farm that leads into a large area of grassland. The one I predicted being to social (the shirt chewer) did have to be shooed away a couple times, but eventually it ran off with the others. It was just an amazing site to see them all run off and know that they have a good chance at survival.
For my actual reflection, I believe I met a lot of my goals from my student learning contract. I was unfortunately not able to assist in much triage and perform exams on new admissions, but I’m not too unhappy about that. I have seen that there can be a lot of stress in that work, and I’m not sure I would be cut out for it. I did however succeed in learning how to work well in a team the care for animals. In fact, we often partnered up for cleaning and feeding all 12 raccoon cages so that no one was out in the heat for too long. I;ve learned different approaches to animal care, such as feeding techniques. For example, I found that letting a raccoon eat on its back while it clings to your arm is a good way to get even the toughest eaters to bottle feed. The downside to this is you do get scratched a lot.
The skills I have learned I hope will carry with me to my career. I didn’t do much hands on medicine administration or dressing wounds, but I did learn how to draw up the vaccines for raccoons and watched a second year intern perform them. Because I went into this internship with very limited hands on experience, I am really proud of myself in what I accomplished. I’ve learned to safely handle animals from baby birds to large and aggressive raccoons. Personally, I feel very confidant in myself when if comes to animals now. When I started at the wildlife center I was worried I would struggle since I have only been studying animals for three years. Nonetheless, I learned quickly, and learned a lot about caring for wildlife. I do want to continue to expand my skill set, and I am considering returning to the wildlife center as a volunteer during winter break. There will be less animals during that time, and I might have a better opportunity to learn skills like reading x-rays, tubing animals, and dressing wounds.
This internship has been the best summer I have ever had. I don’t know how to describe this without being a huge cliche, but everyday I woke up at 6:30 to get to the wildlife center at 8am, I was excited. I loved going in and seeing what was new each day. I definitely want my future career to be with wildlife rehabilitation. I would honestly think about returning to the wildlife center as an employee, but I am not sure they can offer positions at this moment. I do like to imagine where wildlife rehabilitation will take me. For instance, will I stay on the east coast, or even stay in the United States? I believe that it will all depend on where I find these rehabilitation centers, and what animals I want to work with in the future. Right now, I am just excited at the opportunities I had this summer, and eager to keep learning.
