Hours Covered: 180-190
During these hours, one of the days was a designated education day. We were instructed to get everyone cleaned and fed by noon, and then until 2pm we would be in the conference room for education. I was really excited, and Jane and Nicole did not disappoint. Jane started by taking us on a tour of the Outdoor Education Environment. She stopped in front of each cage and told us the history of the resident inside. The American crow was raised by humans, and therefore has an imprint that prevented her from being released. I like to think this is why she is so volatile sometimes, because she remembers humans taking her from the wild. The opossum with neurological issues came in with siblings, and while the siblings progressed well, she did not. She was healthy, but not able to survive in the wild. So, her siblings were released and she stayed. Our questral was another human imprint, and our barred owl is blind. I think the turkey vulture is the saddest story of all of them. He was shot, and then later hit by a car. He is doing fine now, but he cannot use his left wing. Because he cannot fly, he was kept as an education animal. The American bald eagle we have also does not have full use of her wings, because she fell out of the nest when she was younger. She was actually admitted to the wildlife center the same year I was born. The skunk who is blind was rescued from someone who had her as a pet illegally. She was not being cared for properly, became sick and then lost her vision in both eyes.
After learning about our education animals, we came back inside and Nicole, another staff member, had prepared a presentation of X-rays. She handed out sheets that had information like the anatomy of a bird, the anatomy of a turtle, the general anatomy of a mammal, and the different types of fractures that an animal can have. She first showed us a couple x-rays of birds and had us locate the different bones. Then we moved onto trying to identify the different kinds of fractures. After that, she shed us the most interesting cases they had had, and we were trying to figure out what was the issue. One animal looked like it had many dots inside its abdomen. Nicole told us that it was buckshot and that the animal was shot and treated for its wounds and lead poisoning.
The saddest things she showed us was the x-ray of a goose. It looked like it had giant nails impaled into it including on through its beak. The worst part is how it got that way. A group of construction workers saw a goose on their site, and thought it would be a fun idea to shoot at it with nail guns. Luckily someone found it and brought it in to the wildlife center. It took a lot of effort and time, but they were able to remove all the nails, and they did not pierce any vital organs. The goose eventually healed and was successfully released. It was great to hear that the goose made a successful recovery, but just terrible to think that there are people harming animals for fun. I know that not everyone is an “animal lover”, but going out of your way to harm an animal is beyond my understanding.
Hearing about this poor goose and how it was treated just broke my heart. It really struck a chord with me that while we can sit and learn as much about animals as we could possibly find out, it is really important to share that information with others. For example, when schools come to tour our education side of the wildlife center, Jane takes out plastic rings from soda cans and mylar balloons. Before the tour is over, she emphasized proper disposal of items like these so that animals do not get stuck in them or choke on them.
On the note about education, I have been seriously considering including public education in my career. I mean I do not particularly like public speaking, but I think it is really important for people to know how to properly coexist with the animals around them. For example, teaching children not to feed bread to waterfowl because of how sick it can make them.