White-tailed Deer Fawn 
Raccoon on Tire Swing 
Raccoons with Popsicles 
Skunk 
Great Horned Owl 
Virginia Opossum
Over this past summer of 2019, I interned at a wildlife rehabilitation center in my home state, New Jersey. I spent a total of 288 hours there over the course of twelve weeks. It was an amazing place to work, and I gained so much hands on experience. Even on my first day, I was thrown right in by working with baby ducks. I started with cleaning the bins they stay in overnight, and providing them with their food and water. Throughout the course of my time at the wildlife center, I was fortunate to work with numerous different species native to New Jersey. I worked with white tail deer fawns, red foxes, coyotes, Virginia opossums, raccoons, skunks, woodchucks, field mice, eastern cottontails, grey squirrels, turtles, snakes, waterfowl (including geese, swans, ducks, great blue herons, etc.), avian species (cardinals, bluejays, house finches, common grackles, etc.), and raptors (such as bald eagles, great horned owls, red tailed hawks, etc.). During the course of my internship I learned many aspects of animal rehabilitation such as proper handling techniques of wild animals, feeding and cleaning practices, and we also had education days where we learned about reading x-rays.
My favorite animal that I worked with this summer was the raccoons. Even though I was bit by one, which was fine because us interns were able to receive rabies shots offered at cost by a retired doctor, the raccoons were the more interesting and overall fun animal. Raccoons usually come to us as babies and need to be bottle fed. There is a chart that tells us how much raccoon formula (in milliliters) a raccoon should get at their weight. Once a raccoon hits a certain milestone weight, they are fed by dish which includes a half cup of formula and a quarter cup of dog roll (a type of dog food). There are some exceptions. Raccoons that refuse bottles or are very aggressive usually get put on dish feeding earlier for their benefit. Another weight milestone gets the raccoon place outside in a cage. We have a total of twelve raccoon cages, and house the raccoons by county. This becomes incredibly important so that when it is time for release, the raccoons get released in the correct county. This helps control populations in the county, and make sure no one area gets overpopulated. The last weight milestone determines the release of the raccoons back into the wild.
This experience this summer has been possible the most important part in helping me determine my future. Because of this internship, I have decided to pursue a career in wildlife rehabilitation. Originally, I had started my college career thinking I was going to be training animals as therapy pets. Seeing how rewarding the work is with rehabilitating an animal, and seeing how happy I am doing that work, really helped me find my passion.
