So Long. Farewell.

The vets next door had some kittens up for adoption.  Cuteness ensued.

We released the bears.  That was fun.

 

Then Meg and I had to clean all the bear poop from the bear cage.  That was not as fun.  Keep in mind we had been feeding 5 huge bowls of food to 7 bears for 4 months in this cage, and it had never been cleaned before this.

Then we released the eagles on route to Madison.  Here I am releasing a Red tailed hawk.

I left the center while we had some strange characters.  Here is a pet a friend of my boss couldn't care for during his vacation.  He had a familiar chirp.

The kittens.  Both with eyes open now, Black and White will soon go to a good home.

And of course, my boss and Meg.

Minocqua left me with some pretty scenes, cool experiences, a lot of knowledge about wildlife, different points of view, and a feeling that small towns can be pretty nice.  It sure beat the job I have now.  How I already miss that up nort' livin'.

Eagle Mania

I picked up this beauty yesterday:

We got another one in today with a broken and bloody wing. We had to kill him, though.

Well. One of the mice started convulsing and then died.  Then we tube fed the loon and we found him a half hour later face first in his bowl of minnows with barf in his mouth.  He's quite dead.

I pretty much became obsessed with Culver's Pumpkin Spice Malt.  It is the most amazing thing I have ever tasted.  Deciding that buying them at every cravetous whim was a waste of money and plastic cups, I found out how to make my own.  And it's delicious: http://www.ctlcolfax.com/maltrecipes.htm

A lady came by today and said, "I have some bear for you."

"What?"

"Some bear.  We shot a bear, skinned it, and are going to give it to you.  It's not full-grown.  Maybe 100 pounds"

"...okay."

So I had to carry an entire and whole skinned bear from her truck to our freezer.  At least they drained most of the blood.

We got in a very sad loon around 6pm.  He had fishing line wrapped all over his beak and tongue, we think he swallowed a hook, and we removed a hook and more line from his wing.  If he doesn't eat minnows on his own tonight we'll have to tube feed him somehow.  He's not even lifting up his lead by himself.

We also got in 2 baby Deer mice.  They are just opening their eyes and are fully furred, so very cute!

I picked up a bald eagle today from about an hour out of town. He has a shoulder problem but he's young so here's hoping he makes it okay.

We got in a baby deer the other day.  It was only days old, and very, very skinny, maybe only 5 or 6 pounds.  I tried to bottle feed it but he wouldn't take any.  Unfortunately, he died.

We also got in a white porcupine.  He's not albino, just a genetic freak.  Everyone is raving about him.  He's a local celebrity by now.  He'll be released this week.

Updates

Our Bald eagle that we've been tube feeding the past two weeks just died an hour ago.

I got to use a flame thrower to clean a cage.

We released the loon.

Our turtle is dying.

...correction: dead.

...and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

Ryan and I did not win the annual Minocqua Wife Carrying Competition, but we did finish, and I wasn't dropped. Good job, Ryan!

I ran through water and sand with 140 pounds on my back and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

We are still tubing the Bald eagle. He is still throwing up, smelling bad, and being really sad overall. But we've started to force feed him some venison. Let's hope he can keep it down.

All the baby mice died and we released 6 deer, 3 coyotes, 4 Great Horned owls, 1 fox, and 1 squirrel, so the center is getting pretty empty. We've had a couple new additions, but nothing that requires too much work. We spent a lot of time these last 2 days cleaning all these cages of mouse and rat parts, caked-on poop, pellets, and feathers. Gross.

fox release

We got a new loon who was caught in fishing hooks and line. He will call back to you if you whistle like a loon. We have to feed him over 100 minnows a day just to keep him quiet. He has quite the healthy appetite.

loon!

We also got a raccoon that we think may have distemper, but hope it doesn't. The thing about raccoons is that they are these balls of disease, basically. 86% of raccoons around here carry a roundworm called Baylisascaris that can easily transfer to any mammal, including us humans. If you come into contact with raccoon feces, you have a good chance of contracting or spreading the worms to other mammals. Eventually, these worms burrow through our systems looking for raccoon parts and end up burrowing into our eyes (making us blind) and, eventually, our brain (making us dead). Since baby raccoons require so much handling, we are not allowed to rehab baby raccoons for this reason. Adults, however, we do rehab, but have to be extra-super-for realz-careful with everything raccoon-related. We need to put their food and water bowls in boiling water every day (the worm eggs are only killed by being burned) and use doctor's gloves when going into their cages. Just more things for me imagine crawling on and within me while I lay awake in bed.

But it's so cute

There is definitely something alive in my room...

Oh, God. It's scurrying.

My Favorite

We euthanized my favorite patient today, the Barred owl.

a quick and painless death

He was a cool bird. They have the most piercing eyes, in my opinion.

"furry" legs and feet

We got a Bald eagle in yesterday. He's pretty sad, kinda lethargic, and ungodly stinky. When you open his room a terrible funk hits you like a red-hot bowling ball to the face. We've had to tube him 2 times a day. He bit me. Now my finger smells too, and it's bleeding.


Last night Meg and I had to tube him all by ourselves. I picked him up without problem and the tubing went well, but right at the end he threw up about a fourth of what we gave him. Our boss said that was common for dehydrated birds, so no worries.


So far he's not improving, but as long as he doesn't have West Nile virus or die from a lack of will to live he should be releasable, since he only has a slight shoulder luxation.

sad

Well, Look What The Cat Dragged In...During Ma Supper!

These Deer Mice are really great. The best thing about them is you have to feed them at 8AM, 11AM, 2PM, 5PM, and 8PM, drop by drop, slowly, so as to not kill them. But that barely tops the fact that you need to rub their genitals with a warm, wet towel after feeding them so that they'll go to the bathroom. This is cool too: you can tell if you've fed them enough by looking through their transparent skin and organs and look to see how much milk has entered their bellies. Oh, and usually they die before they get to grow up and get fur and eyes and stuff. So it's all worth it, really.

We have 2 out of 5 left. Stay strong, little survivors.

Updates

So that animal was not a baby mole. It was an adult shrew. Oops.

One of the hummingbirds died.

My sad little chipmunk has died.

One of our Red tailed hawks broke his thumb so we had to put him in bandages and a small cage.

We also lost some more birds who only stayed the night - they either died or Mark put them down.

Bur all our squirrels are doing just fine, and we got another baby one.

Mole-y Mole-y!

We got a baby mole today. But he died on the exam table.


We also got a finch, but he died over night.


The chipmunk ain't doing so hot. He's pretty sad.

15-hour workday fun

We were welcoming a basically work-free nighttime schedule, as the only "baby" left was this one little squirrel who took 10 minutes to feed at 8pm.

The baby flying squirrel

But then the flood came. I answered the first phone call at 6pm.

"I found a baby squirrel, what should I do?"

I call my boss and he says to have it brought in. Of course, these people aren't willing to bring it. They have to work the next day and they are from, God bless it, Rhinelander, which is a whole whopping 30 minutes away. So they make me call about 10 volunteers, asking them if they will pick up this squirrel on a Saturday night. Finally someone agrees.

10 minutes later I get another call. It's another baby squirrel. I say bring it in. Of course, they just can't tonight and can't I come get it? As if we're some sort of ambulance service. So here I go again (of course not remembering which volunteer drivers I had already called that night) trying to find a driver. Someone takes the job.


I hang up the phone and before I even lift my hand from the receiver it rings again. It's the police. A woman, they tell me, is going to be bringing in a woodpecker.

"Okay."

So this woman and her two little girls come in with this plastic bag. The woodpecker is inside it. I quickly bring it to the exam room and shut the door. As I try to get it out of the bag it lets out a death cry. Those poor children probably thought I was torturing it. It wouldn't stop screaming and I just put it in a cage since I was alone in the center and couldn't examine a bird on my own quite yet. I call the other intern and tell her to come back to the center asap because I'm waiting for squirrels and don't know what to do with this woodpecker. We try to examine the bird, but she is very feisty. We drop her about 6 times and finally determine that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this animal. Sure enough, she could fly and we released her the next morning.

I get another call around 8:30pm. A woman has found a chipmunk in the road who is acting funny. She agrees to bring it to the center. A half hour later she calls back and says she can't get him into the blanket because he is too squirmy.

"Fine. I'll come get him."

She tells me she's on Highway D and I trust I can find that. She assures me she was only 15 minutes from Minocqua, but it takes at least a half hour to get to her. I take the chipmunk and drive him back. We give him some steroids. He acts strangely, stumbling, losing his balance, falling over, dozing in and out. We suspect he was hit by a car. He is still not doing so hot today. And, he has a huge bug living inside his belly. We pull it out. It is the size of his foot:


The last squirrel comes around 9:45pm. He is just a baby so we feed him some water and electrolytes, put them on a heating pad, and then head up to bed around 10:30pm.

They all survived the night!

We got an adult squirrel today who was not as fun to behold as the baby squirrels the night before. His face was bloody, there was blood in his mouth, he kept tipping over. We don't know what happened to him, but he has survived the day and is looking better and better as the day goes by.

getting ready for food

We spent at least one hour today listening to children's songs about moose and bears and looking up youtube videos of of hammer dulcimers, at my boss' request.

"My paw's bigger than your paw!"

In between the dancing, youtubing, moose impressions, and receiving and catching new animals, we still fed the usual patients. I fed the Great-horned owls:

The hummingbirds:


And many others. Three more days of work and then I go to Madison for a couple days off. I'm pretty stoked about sleeping in.

Odds and Ends

We've released some animals: a loon, a hawk, a Barred owl, a deer mouse, and a squirrel.

Go, little Deer Mouse. Go!

We've also killed some animals: a hawk and a nighthawk.

We are feeding the Great-horned owl real food now instead of tubing him. When I go to give him his mice every morning her greets me with a very grateful expression:



I've been filling up the Bald Eagles' water tub lately, which requires me to sit with the hose in their cage for about 10 minutes at a time. They don't like it very much and those that can fly circle around me the whole time, and those that can't fly jump and run around, complaining vocally.

Hali and her 4 "adopted children"


The young Bald Eagles


Hali and a youngling who can't fly well

I've also been feeding the barred owl a lot lately. He's one of my favorites.

yum


"What, no ketchup? "

I went to a lumberjack show on my day off in neighboring Woodruff. You know a place doesn't have much to do when they boast that their main attraction is a huge penny:

"Woodruff Wisconsin: Home of the World's Largest Penny"

But it was really fun. Even more fun than the display of a huge penny.



I'm on day 2 of my 7-day-long work stretch. I'm already exhausted, but am really, really (really) going to try to get 9 hours of sleep tonight at least so I can be awake for 5 more days or work, work, and work.

At least there is rumor of fresh doughnuts tomorrow morning (!).

Also, I am psyched about Monday. Hnue Yang starts work, which means extra hands and less work for everyone. Also, we are starting at 8am instead of 7:30am. An extra half hour of sleep will go miles.

Gone!

The Chimney Swift has been released! No more birds to force feed every hour!

Blunders, Bird Tackling, and Dog Parties

Today I made a lot of mistakes. No one here knows. But I did.

After about 4 people spent an hour cutting up 30 apples, 15 pears, 2 cantaloupes, a bag of grapes, 20 plums, 20 peaches, and measuring and dumping in 52 cups of dog food, 6 cans of cat food, 3 bags of corn, 20 ounces of fish and 20 ounces of venison, I took the 5 bowls of food out on a wagon to go deliver the meal to the bears and tipped the whole damn thing. Only one bowl's contents was left intact. I picked up as much as I could (it was hard to get 52 cups of dry dog food out of a pile of leaves and wood chips) and then went to Ann, the assistant director of reab, to ask her what I should do, since "I tipped over a bowl." She said to just throw it all back in. The bears were going to tip them over the second they got their paws on them. So I gathered what I could and gave it to the bears, who fought pretty viciously over the muddy, once-appetizing-looking fruit and meat.

pre-spilled bear food

I was also told to clean our adult squirrel's cage. I had never done it before, and he is a feisty little thing, so I was a bit apprehensive. Every time I opened the door to remove his dishes he tried to escape. All I needed to do was open the little door, get the food out, and close it. The rest of the cleaning would be easy since it had a slide-out bottom in which to place new newspapers. Well, I couldn't even do that right, because on my third time trying to get out his food dishes he jumped out of the open door straight into my face. He bounded off my horror-struck expression and onto the unsuspecting raptor patients' cage bars, and from there into an unoccupied but quite bird-poopy cage. I grabbed him, fearing he would bite me and we would have to put him down (as is the rule with all mammals), and threw him back into his cage. He seemed offended. His normal behavior would be to inspect me and play about, but at this time he hid in his den box, only to return 30 minutes later when I replaced his nut tray.

the hooligan

I also did some things right today. I caught my first bird. A Bald Eagle. I had to hold him for about 5 minutes while someone replaced his bedding, which was quite the forearm workout. I also caught, held, and tube-fed a Great-Horned Owl. He was found starved. I didn't do so well with keeping his beak open, but I was pretty good at getting my fingers painfully clamped down on.

a Great-horned owl

We also released the last 3 bunnies we had today.

Last night I was going to go to sleep early, but instead my boss, Mark, invited us to his "dog party." He apparently has quite the heart for big dogs. He has 7, and as far as I could tell he has 5 Leonbergers. They are very cute, and very huge.


His house is about a half hour drive from the rehab center - straight into the woods. His nearest neighbors are 3 miles away. The land is beautiful. We missed the party, but got to meet his wife, dogs, and one of his friends, and his dog. He gave us a tour of his "alternative energy house." It is solar powered, and he is not connected to the "grid." He powers up a bunch of batteries from his solar panels, and has a generator for back-up. His energy bill is about $400 a year.

Mark's battery-powered house

He took us to his backyard, which is a a huge lake. Absolutely gorgeous. We stood out there in the cold for about a half hour doing bird calls, lisening to owls, looking at the stars (saw a shooting star), and laughing as one of the dogs went swimming repeatedly. We got home late, so again I did not get very much sleep.

Tomorrow is the last day any summer interns will be here, and most have left or are leaving tomorrow. Tonight I get my own room.

I was basically offered a job with the Madison School District the other day, and I had to turn it down because of this internship. They told me to check back in at the end of September, since a lot of their bilingual staff drop in and out randomly. I more or less like this job now, but I can't say for sure yet if I'll be staying until Halloween. According to the emails I got from the Director a couple months back, this internship goes until mid-October, or later if I want. But we'll see. I have a couple weeks before I need to make any decisions about when I'm going to leave Minocqua.

Tomorrow = Sleep

Only 4 days in a row of this job and I am burnt out. This is a crazy profession. The main rehabilitator explained to us that he made 31 cents an hour the first couple years of doing this work. He made around $23,000/year for working 364 days out of the year, 105 hours/week. It's 9:30pm and I just got off work, unless someone calls or brings in an animal. Crazy job. No wonder the burn-out rate is 5 years on average. We've calculated us interns make $1.40/hour not including the free housing.

I was trained in the education program and front desk stuff today, which was a nice break from chopping fruit and trying to feed squirmish squirrels with eye droppers as they claw up your hands.

daily bear food

PS - My hands are destroyed. I have developed the habit of applying Neosporin to them about every 20 minutes and every time I get my hands wet. The combination of the squirrel scratches, constant washing of the hands, dish washing, citrus juices, Virkon disinfectant spray, and latex gloves have done quite a number on my already-not-so-eligible-to-be-featured-in-hand-model-photo-shoots paws. The Neosporin is helping.

Jason, a much better squirrel-handler than I, feeding a red squirrel


I much prefer to watch them eat their food themselves.

Dive bomb

We got in a very sad Bald Eagle last night. He was cut up in a few places, was missing some primary tail and wing feathers, and his feet were incredibly deformed. Mark looked at him today and decided to put him down, which was no suprise to us. It was a sad little ending, his body was fighting the injection pretty hard there for a couple seconds.

I'm going to glove-train a resident animal so we can use it in future education programs. That's pretty exciting to me. I already got a chance to try it out with our Long-Eared Owl, Leo. He is a stubborn little guy, but he is pretty cool, I think.

Leo

I have a love/hate relationship with the birds. Chimney Swifts eat by flying through the air, catching things in their open mouths. So, it is hard to feed ours in its little cage. We need to pry its mouth open and stick in the worms. Everyone else seems fine at it, but my sausage fingers have a hard time prying open its mouth and keeping it open long enough to get the worm ready. It takes me about 15 minutes to get it to eat 5 worms, and I feel like I crush it while I do it.

The Chimney Swift prepares for a drawn-out force-feeding.

I love the Red-eyed Vireo. When I come out to the bird food stand outside, he flies onto my shoulder, chirping madly and opening his mouth. I'm trying to teach him to pick up his own worms. He's doing better but I think he'll be staying in the backyard a bit longer. During 2 tours today the Vireo landed on people. Grace, an intern, was giving a tour and the Vireo came onto her shoulder, begging for food. When Andy, another intern, was giving a tour, the Vireo landed on an old lady's head and she started freaking out. It upset her granddaughter and the kid began to cry. Mark told them to carry some worms on them so they can feed the Vireo in front of the guest. Butter them up so they're greasing their palms at the donation box at the end of the tour, I suppose!

Waiting for service

Free-loading

Here are pictures of some other patients and residents:

The Green Wing Teal wants to be in the water - even if it's his drinking water.

TJ, the resident Kestrel, and his bad eye

This poor li'l coyote has mange.

I've been cleaning out this big guy's cage - while he's still in it. He is not pleased.

If you are interested in sponsoring a resident animal or helping fund the hospital, find info on how to do so here: http://www.northwoodswildlifecenter.com/general/memberships.htm

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On a different note, all Harry Potter fans MUST watch this musical in its entirety. I laughed my robes off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmwM_AKeMCk&feature=related

Beginning to Understand

I think I am beginning to understand better the philosophy of the center and its employees. I can understand, more or less, why someone who spends all day taking care of fawns one day can go hunting for deer, in a responsible way, the next. I think I had fixed ideas of what an animal-loving environmentalist acted and looked like. But there are many types. I'm still surprised by some things, but at least the hunting and fishing I think I understand.

I also realize that I had a warped view of euthanasia before coming here. I judged the Center for putting down that fawn that got hit by a car my first night here. I wanted to tell my boss that that hawk with a broken wing could survive and why can't we try at least for a week to keep him alive? And if we couldn't fix the wing perfectly why not let him go and give him a chance to make it work as long as he isn't in much pain?

But wildlife rehab isn't about saving lives, it's about releasing wild animals back into the wild. We pretty much only get animals that would die, quite painfully, if left alone. And they are hard to fix.

“What gives quality of life to wildlife? The fact of being at liberty, however briefly and precariously, the ability to make all the choices, the fulfilling of an evolutionary role. And also the restoration of freedom when it was almost lost forever. But what about the ones that were permanently maimed? Is euthanasia the only answer? No, but it usually is the best answer. Euthanasia can be an end to pain and terror, a compassionate and moral alternative to a captive life so diminished in quality that its maintenance is really an act of cruelty. And when that damage makes freedom suicidal, and release irresponsible, the chances for a life of quality in captivity are narrowed to the very expensive for the few...But right at the beginning there is something you should know, even if it breaks your heart. For all your long hours, and the physical effort, and the expense, and the arguments with others over your priorities, and even your genuine affection for this creature, you have come to love, there will be one thing missing from its life. And if you leave the cage door open, it will opt for that one thing above all others that were provided, and it will walk out of the door to freedom, and its death. Because this is the way of all wildlife.” -K. McKeever

Minocqua 6 : Wild Thing

We released my first animal today. A cute widdle bunny wabbit. Be free, bunny! Be free.


I fed the bears myself too. It was fun to chuck huge metal tins at them and clang pots together shouting. I don't know if we are allowed to insult them. Actually, we might be encouraged to insult them since we need them to dislike humans. Tomorrow I shall call the "No good hippies," which seems to be the ultimate insult up here in Minocqua.

I also caught my first bird! We have a common loon that needs to be transferred from his pond to his "isolation room" inside every night. It took my about 15 minutes because he kept diving into his pool and swimming round and round. When he knew what was up he double peddled and swam twice as quickly! But he had to come up for air sometime. 15 minutes later and with my jeans drenched, I transported the unhappy little guy victoriously. It was a good first capture, seeing as how he has no talons and all...



The morning dove I injected the other day died.

I also fed a bat. He needs to eat live worms though, which kinda mad me uncomfortable. At least I put the worms' heads in first so that they didn't have to be slowly eaten alive as the bat took his sweet, sweet time (about 5 minutes) to chew up the whole thing.


Tonight we release the bat, which apparantly had no injuries at all.

I also learned where the recycling center is, how to buy Center food at the Trig's grocery store, and how to bury euthenized animals. My Merlin, the first animal I examined, was put down yesterday and I took him out to the back to bury the litle guy. It wasn't a very graceful funeral though. I wasn't sure where to bury him. There was supposed to be a "pit," but I wasn't sure if I was in the right spot so I dug a little bit until I found some other corpses and then I knew I was in the right place.

I got my September schedule, and it is a humdinger. 7 days of work in a row followed by a weekend and then 6 days in a row. Whooee. That's lot of 12-14 hour workdays in a row...

I left my camera on a desk and here are 2 photos I found on it hours later:

Mark, the main rehaber, my boss

Meg, the other fall intern

Not 3 days into this internship, word that I don't eat meat got 'round like people learning that someone got cancer or was caught in an affair. Meg asked me 3 days ago what I liked to put in my burritos. "Refried beans, tomatoes, lettuce, sour cream..." "Wait," she said. "Are you a vegetarian?" "Yes," I replied. We talk about for about the next 5 seconds and then move on. Now suddenly all the interns know, and bring it up a least once a day. I was looking at some raw deer meat this morning and said, "This looks really tasty." "Wait," one intern I barely speak to says, "Aren't you a vegetarian?" From the back of the room I hear my boss shout, "Who's a vegetarian?" "Christine!" 3 interns shout at once. Then for the next half hour my 2 bosses talk about bow hunting equipment. It's very strange and it would be, had I any sense of awkwardness or pride, pretty uncomfortable. In Madison it's expected that someone in any group is vegetarian, if not vegan. I feel like I should be put in a zoo up here for a simple eating choice that attracts absolutely zero attention back home.

Minocqua 5

First day as a trained intern. So much happens here every day that it's hard to remember what all happened. I had a very hard time waking up this morning at 7am, so I didn't, and instead awoke at 7:20am. I started off with feeding the remaining 2 red squirrels. They pooped and peed all over me about 4 times in a row.

The gray squirrels kept farting loudly in the background the whole time.



The baby flying squirrel is hilariously adorable. When you feed him with the eye dropper he swims with his front arms frantically like he wants to fly or swim as he's sucking down his formula.

Then I learned how to feed the owls all by myself. It involves cutting about 7 rats in half (trying to gauge the cutline so as to best not have their livers spew all over) and piling about 10 black mice on top of those on a plastic ice cream tub top. Sprinkle with vitamins, chill, and serve. The owls are cool. They see you coming from far away and start clicking at you, warning you to stay away. But they don't attack, just puff up and make noises. Sometimes fly around.


Then I learned how to feed the bear cubs. We do our best to make them not like humans, which is hard when we feed and take care of them every day. So after cutting up 4 huge barrels of fruit we scream at them and bang pot together to scare them away. A couple of them don't seem too frightened, which is bad.


They. Are. So. Adorable.

A couple animals died today. The Merlin I examined 2 days before had a break in his wing right by his joint, so the rehaber put him down. An American Kestrel that just had a part of his wing amputated, to whom I applied ointment the night before, was found dead today in his cage.

I did my first injection today. A Morning Dove was brought in. No bone problems but it hit someone's window and was acting a bit funny, so we gave him a steroid. I got to do that. After calculating the amount to give it and then, embarrassingly, trying to figure out how to get the syringe out of its casing, I gave it the shot. I was a bit unsteady and it took me 2 times to get it right, but I got that medicine in.

I also did my first food tube. An amazing, huge bald eagle came in. He probably has West Nile or lead poisoning. We made this food mush out of water, canned cat food, and vitamins. The rehaber prepared the food and I set up the tubes. While others held his beak open I put the tube down into his belly and put in 180 cc of food. it went very well and they said that's the best they've ever seen an intern do on their first try. Hooray! Something I don't fail at!

We released a Verio birdie into our property yesterday. We had been feeding him once every hour in a cage here at the center for a couple weeks now. I love him. Every time I go out to put food in the bird feeder and worms out on the "public" bird platform, the Verio comes and freaks out at you. He landed on my head and almost on my shoulder too. He stand right by your hand and opens his mouth. I guess he doesn't want to eat by himself quite yet so we drop some worms in his mouth for him until he flies away to digest and wait until the next hour!

We also got a red squirrel and Seagull today. A lady brought in the squirrel, who seems okay, after he dog presented her with it in his mouth. I hope he'll be okay. The little guy is so cute.

We got a call from a local lake-side restaurant. Someone found an injured Gull while boating and wanted us to pick it up. I volunteered to go in the car to get him. We have an official Animal Rescue van, and I felt very powerful. I wish the van had a siren. The Gull has some wing troubles, but we are keeping it for the night.

The fawns are also incredibly adorable. I love feeding the deer their formula. All but 2 of them rush over to us and pick a bottle and suck madly. I can't imagine being a mother deer. My teets would fall off.

I had a nice relaxing half hour on this beautiful sunny day where I picked clover, dandelions, and plantain leaves for the bunnies. I enjoyed that. And I am much more confident in my ability to find these plants than I am in my ability to find the Aspen and Hazel branches we give to the porcupine and deer.

I didn't realize that basically every animals we got in would be here because of people. At least half of these animals are hit by cars. Others have shotgun pellets in them, others are hurt by pets, others eat fishing hooks, and others eat animals with lead bullets in them and get lead poisoning. So far no animals have come in that have fallen out of trees, been attack by another animal, or have just fallen and can't get up.

It's 5:52pm and I only have 7 minutes before I need to go feed birds again and take care of the loon. After that, I can make some dinner. Then, at 8pm, it's feeding time again! These animals eat so much better than I do. It's very discouaging to spend 4 hours a day cutting up fresh fruit and veggies for bears, deer, and bunnies and then going home to fix yourself up some grilled cheese and cereal. Perhaps it is time to go grocery shopping again, but I haven't gotten any paychecks yet. Oh well. I want fruit. So tonight I get fruit.

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It is now 9:30pm and the workday just ended (hopefully!). I spent the last half hour looking for clover, dandelions, and plantain leaves for the bunnies with 5 other interns, having realized that we did not have enough for the morning and our boss would chew us out if we didn't have any bunny greens stocked. It was fun, but I'm not so sure if this job will be so nice without all the other interns. But everyone says Hnue is awesome - and that she makes up for 5 people in fun.

Goodnight, 14-hour workday!

PS: I really, really, REALLY suck at feeding squirrels. I CANNOT hold the OR make them eat. But, I seem to be quite spectacular at cutting up rats...

Minocqua 4

The Merlin has made it through another day. He has a dislocated humorous, which is serious, but we'll do our best.

One of our red squirrels died today. I fed the red squirrels last afternoon. Here begins the constant inevitable wonderings of "Did I kill him somehow?"

Today was my day off and I slept for 13 hours total. Now I lay in bed trying to get tired so i can be well-rested for my first day as a "fully-trained" intern here at the Northwoods Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.