Not Goodbye...See You Later

And so all good things must come to an end. This is officially my last post on this particular blog, however, there may be another one in my future someday.

The last few weeks have been pretty uneventful. The staff is even surprised at how un-busy the center's been; apparently it's pretty abnormal for this time of year. Word on the street is that in the next few weeks the pace is going to pick up again as the baby squirrels start arriving. I'm sad that I'll be missing this phase - I just missed it when I arrived back in June and I'll be missing the second wave as well, which is sad because they are quite adorable....

I have gotten to work with some other really cool animals recently though...We've had an egret, a green heron, (another) bat, a lesser night hawk (similar to a Poorwill), and one unexpected guest, a rattlesnake that took up residence in our intake area. One of the interns heard it rattling at her one morning and apparently the ensuing extraction process was quite a sight. Poor Jo, the hospital manager, had to deal with the snake on her birthday of all days, but something like that probably keeps you feeling young. (Update: so we got the snake out but then it came back and so now we've removed all the furniture from the intake area and cleared the space where the snake is supposedly hiding. As far as I know it's still there...)

Possum face

The baby skunk that I was bottle-feeding finally moved out to the outdoor enclosure with the big skunks! She remains to this day extremely friendly so I worry about her chances for release (I imagine she'll have to stay at the center for a while, gradually learning how to be a wild skunk again. It should help that she's now surrounded by real skunks rather than people all the time. When she was in RVU with one other skunk, she would stick her nose through the bars of her cage and sniff whenever we entered the room, occasionally sticking her paw out too to try and push the door open. (so cute). When I went down to clean the big outdoor enclosure the other day, I was sad that I wouldn't be able to recognize her among the others. But as I was squatting on the ground picking up some poop, I suddenly felt a nose push against my leg and I looked down to see a face peering up at me. She curiously sniffed at the bag I was holding and then attempted to climb into my lap. So much for not recognizing her :) Sadly I don't have pictures of this encounter, but it was quite special and i thought of it as a great goodbye from her.

I got to do a hawk release, which was quite a special experience. Unlike other birds where you can just open the box and let them fly away, you have to give hawks a lift, either letting them take off from your hand or gently throwing them up in the air, forcing them to take off. Hopefully I'll be getting some pictures/maybe even a video of this soon to post! It was definitely a special moment when the hawk took to the air and soared away, free once again.

I had a strange moment a few weeks ago when I was instructed to show one of the new interns how cleaning of RVU worked (aka, cleaning out the little skunks). There were only two skunks in a single cage, so it wasn't too much of a lesson, however, I realized how cyclical the whole event was: almost three months ago exactly I was in the role of the "new" intern, being instructed by the older intern on how to clean out the skunks in RVU. As the famous line goes in Starwars, "at last the circle is now complete when we last met I was but the learner now I am the master..." ha ha nerd moment :P

Today was my last day at the center :( It started out pretty normal - I did diets for most of the morning as there wasn't much to do in ICU and we had no volunteers to help out. Around midday however, Jo asked if I would take some of the Western Scrub Jays out to Simi Valley. I thought it was a fitting end to my time at CWC since these jays were some of the birds I helped to feed and raise when they were in babycare, so setting them free would be a poignant last event.

Like a cautious parent, I made sure the jays wore their seat belts

such a beautiful new home! 

Not sure if they enjoyed the ride....

Unlike mammal releases, releasing birds is a lot less stressful. The birds can immediately adjust their locations if they don't like it, and you don't have to worry about them getting hit by cars. (Although my roommate told me a story that involved her releasing some doves and just as she let them out of the box, a huge (wild) hawk swooped down and attempted to catch them. Luckily it missed). I found a nice park ahead of time, in the middle of a quiet neighborhood in Simi Valley that was nice and deserted when I arrived. One of the birds shot out of the box immediately, while the other one needed some gentle nudging. This release was a bit more poignant than the others, since I knew the animals "personally" and as it was my last time doing one. But I know I will hold on to that incredible feeling of releasing those animals back where they belong, and watching them go free again.

Tomorrow I fly home, to start my life as an unemployed, graduate, and my time at the CWC officially ends. I cannot express how incredible this summer has been - I have learned so much and experienced so many new things, as well as met some pretty amazing people along the way. I don't know when I'll be back, but I know CWC and CA are not out of my life forever. Until next time..

Peace, Love and Wild


Below are some pictures that were taken with my "nice" camera :)

Camels take CA

New branch of Emerson College in LA! It's a college built in a box! 

So Much to Do, So Little Time...

 I'll try to incorporate more pictures into this post, since a) it explains things a lot better than my descriptions do and b) i know that's what people are really interested in :) 

I think I say this in every post, but how is it that there are only two weeks left in August?! I leave for Boston in only 2 weeks and at that point will have been here for almost 3 months total, and yet it simultaneously feels like just yesterday I was arriving and also like 3 years ago. Just when I think life at the center will start to get boring, nature throws new curve balls at us. I now feel that I more or less am entirely competent in the hospital, and only have to ask minimal questions throughout the day (as opposed to 15 every two minutes :P). One major concern that the other interns and I all share is the lack of consistency between the staff. Each has their own methods of performing different tasks and how they organize the ICU during their day on call/in charge, however, they don't seem to be that familiar with each other's methodologies. So if one staff member sees me drawing up fluids in a "strange/unusual" way, I worry that they question my competency rather than recognize that i was just taught to do that task a different way. That means that no matter how confident I feel, there is always the possibility that I will make a mistake or do something the wrong way. I guess the positive way to see this is that it means I never stop learning new things and in the end, learning a bunch of different methods to perform the same task means that I only will be enhancing my skills.

Adding to my sense of confidence, two new externs and a new intern arrived the other day. It was exciting, but also sad since the two externs and other intern from my session left, so there're only a handful of us left. It was more poignant for me since it reminds me that it will soon be time for me to leave, and while I am eager to get home and see everyone I love, it will be a major culture shock to leave the center. But the new blood is a nice change and a stark reminder to how I was my first day. You can see from their faces just how overwhelming the place can be to an outsider, and it feels weird to be placed in a position of authority/knowledge.

Okay, now for the stories:

The baby skunk that we were bottlefeeding in the ICU has now grown to the point where she's eating solid food and could be moved in with another young skunk. She still enjoys seeing people though and will walk to the front of her cage to greet us when we go to clean RVU (bad sign since it probably means she's a bit imprinted, but cute all the same). There is another group of young skunks living in RVU as well (we also had to bottlefeed them for a while too), and they are the exact opposite of cute. They are so anxious about anything that comes near them, that they spray first, ask questions later. I have been sprayed numerous times thus far, multiple times in the face, and i'm torn between being proud that they are learning to defend themselves and hopeful that they will mellow out a bit. The larger skunks that we have in an outdoor enclosure are definitely on the friendlier side: they walk up to you when you go to deliver their food at night, sniffing at your legs and feet and not the least bit scared of you. I hope they don't do that once they're released - that'll be a nice shock for the people in the neighborhood :)

I've found that this job definitely makes me more jaded towards human beings. It's so heartbreaking the number of cases we have come in that are due to human negligence and stupidity. Sometimes we deal with people who may have had the best intentions at heart, and attempt to raise or heal an injured animal on their own, but end up seriously underestimating their own abilities and what was best for the animal. More often than not, these hand-raised animals come to us malnourished/underfed, imprinted and physically messed up. Sadly these animals are usually put down, and if they had just been brought to the center in the first place, they may have had a chance of surviving. We also run into situations where people "kidnap" animals (as we call it), where they find a baby bird or mammal that appears to be without parents. Rather than wait to see if the parents return or call and expert to figure out if maybe the animal is supposed to be on its own (sometimes fledgling birds will fall out of their nests and can't get back up, but their parents will hang around to feed and care for it where it falls), they just try to be a hero and bring the babies to us. We try to explain that as skilled as we are at raising baby animals, we can't compare to the baby's actual parents, and that it stands a much better chance of surviving back in nature where it belongs. (oftentimes people don't listen and insist that we take the bird and that they are sure that something's wrong with it. 9/10 times they're wrong :P)

Then we have cases of direct human-caused damage. We get countless birds and small mammals that have been hit by cars or fly into windows, but there are also a few specific cases. A beautiful adult female red-tailed hawk was brought into the center with a bad wing injury that was bleeding profusely. It turned out to be a broken ulna/radius for those who know specifics. Slowly the information started to come in: apparently the hawk swooped down and killed a gull in front of these two men and a third-party witness saw one of the men take a huge slab of concrete and throw it at the bird. At this point the man's exact reasoning is unclear, nor will it ever make sense in my opinion. But we eventually had to put the hawk down because its wing bone was completely shattered, which was really terrible. However, I learned that the California Fish and Wildlife Dept is pressing charges against the man and building a case against him - they came and collected the hawk's body and x-rays from us to add to their evidence. Hopefully they can prosecute successfully!

Besides this hawk, we recently had a canada goose with 4 fish hooks stuck in him (one long fishing line that had 4 hooks spaced out along it), a cormorant also with several hooks in him, a young hummingbird that someone attempted to keep, and feed raw hamburger meat, a young possum that someone found and attempted to keep but ultimately had to bring in when his back legs stopped working (we think they didn't feed him the right food and cause him to develop metabolic bone disease). We also got one of our most unusual cases: a lizard that had been completely painted over by a carpenter. We had to slowly peel the paint off of his eyes and face so he could eat and see. AHH (the) humanity!

But sometimes the animals injure themselves. In BCU there were four young scrub jays living in a single cage together and one day we noticed that the smallest, scruffiest looking one had a red wound on the back of his neck. We took him next door to the hospital, they disinfected and bandaged the wound and sent him back. Oddly enough, a few days later he had yet another wound on a different part of his neck, this one more severe. The vet thought that the other jays might be picking on him, so we moved the largest, most aggressive of the four to another flock, and the young jay got actual sutures (that i got to assist with!) and a handsome new bandage.

Doesn't he look smart? The bow tie also served the purpose of letting us know if the bandage twisted or moved

All the lady Jays will be smitten

There was also a little possum that was getting chewed on by his cage-mate ("cage-mate"trauma is the official diagnosis). I got to help with that guys surgery as well :)

The happy patient :) (pre surgery)

I'll end the post with some happy pictures of animals at the center:

Feeding a baby bat his favorite dish: worm guts. mmmmmm.... 

doves (aka "duurrrvs" as we call them) 

Baby House Finches

Baby mocking birds

Mourning Dove 

 cool frog I found outside when cleaning an enclosure 

Western Screech Owl

Me peeling the paint off the lizard 

"Buddha-gull." He was very calm and poised throughout his stay at the center. Possibly could have something to do with the fact that he mysteriously couldn't use his legs.....