To do or not to do

I feel the need to explain my job to some of you. I may post really cute photos and talk about some of the good stuff, but you should understand that is roughly 10% of my job. The rest of it involves doing dishes, cleaning cages, doing laundry, sweeping & mopping, scrubbing pools, prepping formula, cutting up meat, fruits & veggies, and the constant maintenance around the Hollow. This can be anything from setting up a cage for an animal to be upgraded, to repairing the cage, and many other things I can’t quite think of. For those of you who saw me running from a cow in Texas on My New Wild Life on Animal Planet you might understand only a smidge better.

Of course I also have to deal with side that isn’t fun to talk about and also is what causes the most emotional distress. The cases that I can’t repair and mend, or the phone call about something that is just beyond what we can help, a full grown deer or some animal (normally a bald eagle) that is out in the water. It is hard to explain to people while being empathetic that is just quite unsafe to do a water rescue for both the animal and the rescuer.

I have also heard my job referenced to the “Dawn” commercials. As that is what we do in rehab. Granted, there are rehab facilities that are dedicated to this, IBRRC, Tri-state, and many more. But as for me… well I helped with washing 2 birds this summer, a pigeon and a barn owl. I also know that my seasonal rehabber, Jessica; volunteer, Heather, education coordinator, Shona, and intern Kate, washed another barn owl this weekend (it fell into a pit toilet at American camp—so you can guess what they had to wash off…ewww).

I hear from time to time that my job isn’t demanding, or stressful. I merely want to laugh at this. Yes, physical stresses can be limited, but when something comes up it generally takes all the strength you have anything from trying to wrestle or move a full size deer to scaling steep hillsides to nab a raptor, wadding in mucky, smelly Westcott bay to net a great blue heron. I know I can still here your head going cool! Which after the fact, you can think that, but you also think good god, I could have been easily hurt. Of course everyday you work, you are dealing with psychological & emotional stresses. Even on good days, those being days I don’t have to euthanize anything or have anything die. We are still dealing with phone calls, attempting to help people understand situations, or trying to find a volunteer to pick up an animal. Plus even if all animals are “healthy” there are always concerns with specific critters.

I don’t if this put anything in perspective, but I think I have hopefully helped you realize that rehab isn’t all fun and games. It is tough work (and by that I mean a good 12 hours plus on call in the summer).