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