Hours Covered: 150-160
One of the days during these hours has a really cool surprise intake. It was during the afternoon, and I was looking round the wildlife center to make sure everything was done before taking my lunch. In the triage room, I found the other interns and a staff member holding a glue trap. Apparently, a family had set out double sided glue traps to catch bugs and spiders, but a young rat snake crawled inside and got stuck. It was most likely attracted to it by a bug that got caught. About 3 inches behind his head was stuck in the glue on top and bottom, as well as an inch of his tail. We spent about 30 minutes watching the staff member carefully cut the glue trap, and pry it open. The glue those traps use is way stronger than I thought. Once the trap was open, she used a syringe with vegetable oil to apply it to where the snake was stuck. Eventually the snake was freed, but it was still covered in glue. So next, she got a tub of warm soapy water, and actually bathed the snake by dipping it in the water and user her hands to rub the glue off with the grain of the scales. After it was clean, she dried it and inspected it. Aside from a few scales missing, it was perfectly healthy. I found out later that it was released the very next day.
In non animal related news, we had a bit of a disaster in the back ICU. One evening when I was leaving, the ceiling was dripping, so we set out buckets and the staff made plans to call a repairman in the morning. When we came in the next morning, the room of flooded, the buckets full, and parts of the ceiling on the floor. Luckily none of the animals in that room got wet. So before taking care of the animals, I was instructed to get the room cleaned up enough that it was safe for us to move the animals out of that room. Eventually it was fixed but it was a pretty crazy morning.
Back to animal news, we recently received a very large and very aggressive raccoon. We couldn’t put it outside until it was vaccinated and it’s wounds healed, but it was too big for a pet carrier. So, we placed in in a double cubicle in the lab. One night, someone must have forgotten to put the extra clips on the cages doors that keeps then super shut, and the raccoon got out. Fortunately, there are motion sensors that let the staff know something is loose. So at about 11pm one of the staff members had to drive back to the center and wrangle this huge aggressive raccoon. Of course, it had already knocked everything over, shredded its own paperwork, and pooped everywhere. The next day I came in, the cage with that racoon was actually padlocked with a chain.
This makes me think of learning in animals. I wonder if the raccoon saw us using the latches and was able to figure it out itself, or was it just a fluke. With how curious and clever they are, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just playing with the closing mechanism, and accidently opened the cage. But, it would be much more impressive if it learned it from us. This seems doubtful because it had only been here a few days. In addition, we actually have a tool for opening the outdoor cages from the other side, because they have occasionally locked us out. It’s just a little latch that goes into an eye hook, but we have them inside the cage so they cannot get out while you are in the cage. Occasionally, the raccoons will play with it, and flip it into the eye hook. It’s both frustrating and impressive.
I’ve officially decided that the raccoons are my favorite, and writing about them only makes me more sure. I don’t know if it’s how similar they are to cats, but I just find them hilarious and fun. There are less fun ones such as the really aggressive one that bit me a couple weeks back, but most of the raccoons we handle are not like that. It can be hard handling aggressive raccoons, because you want to use the heavy gloves to protect yourself, but they make it really hard to hold onto the raccoon and open and close the pet carriers. Sometimes you have to have one had with a regular medical glove and just be very careful. Overall, it is definitely worth it. Working with the raccoons is always my favorite parts of the day, and I just can’t help but love when they wrap around your arm and lay on their back for bottle feeding
