Out of Order

     There is exactly one bathroom in the wildlife clinic, and you can't use it. It's very annoying when someone comes in to drop off an animal and says oh I'm just going to use your bathroom quick and they try to go in before you can stop them. It's mostly inconvenient because it's also a storage closest and also it's where we keep the fawns. Until there's enough to keep each other company in the barn, we don't just have them in the bathroom all summer, that would be crazy.
      I did have the pleasure of trying to change the papers and blankets for them in the bathroom, which is very difficult because fawns are very friendly and easily tamed, so when raising orphaned ones to be released into the wild you have to minimize contact and completely ignore them sucking on your ear in an attempt for food every time you bend over to pick up their old bedding.
     I'm going to sidetrack here because I think it relates; back when I was on a labor crew in Nevada, we had this job that was an eight-day backpacking trip on a mountain repairing some log cabins. Turns out, you cant cathole rock so we had to relieve ourselves in bags for eight days and hike it back down with us. Anyway, one of the crew leaders had this spot that was privet where she liked to do her business, and she couldn't poop for three days because every time she was all ready to go a pheasant would come out of a bush and just stare at her. We suspected that it knew this was when she was vulnerable.
      And that's why I honestly don't think anyone would be able to use the bathroom for its intended purpose anyway, as you might get poop shy with four fawns looking at you, nibbling your knees and wondering if you have food.

Baby Owls

WARNING: I chop up mice in this one...
We have some baby screech owls in the clinic right now that are absolutely adorable. like small beaky puff balls that will make odd clicking noises at you for raw meat. I think the worst part of anything in the clinic would be cutting up the mice for these guys. First, you cut off their tails, then you slice open their stomach, fold them inside out and cut out their guts. If they are young enough, you also have to skin them, and after that, you have to cut the mouse into tiny bite-sized pieces. (Pro tip- when cutting the head of a mouse in half, for the love of god do it lengthwise. otherwise, the brains squish out the back of the head in a tube of liquid goo.) 
This is the exact reason I never took any anatomy classes.

Not the Best and Not the Worst

     When a new animal comes in we have to evaluate procedures that I am quickly learning. We check for dehydration, alertness, broken bones, head trauma, mites, and obvious parasites. We weigh the animals and get them comfortable as quickly as possible. After the initial quick exam, we tell the person who brought the animal in how they're doing/ what we think is wrong. Then after some more paperwork, we do a more thorough examination.
     I helped examine a Blue Jay with a lower spine injury from getting hit by a car and learned how to administer the proper amount of pain medication.
     

     There are tons of animals that come in every day, and unfortunately, not all of them make it. Initially, I thought it would be hard to deal with these situations; from baby bunnies that die of stress to a woodchuck someone found starved in a cage- we have to bag, label, throw in the freezer and set aside their paperwork for my supervisor who has to report everything to the state.
     This is not as bad as it sounds, I am having less of an issue with it than I thought I would. I know that the people who bring in the animals do the best they can, and once they're in our care, we do the best we can. Sometimes stress or their injury just gets to them and there's nothing more we can do, it's just part of life.
     I did learn how to resuscitate a baby cottontail, It was cold when it was brought in, and its eyes weren't even open yet. I gently rubbed its chest with my finger as he gasped briefly back to life. It lived for a whole 20 minutes more. Not much, but it still felt like I did something.

The Internships

     With this internship, I will successfully graduate with associates in Environmental Sciences. A wildlife clinic may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you get a degree in my field, but I'm hoping that It will help answer the 'what comes next?' question on my mind. I have no idea where to go next, or what 4-year degree I want. It is a little odd though, working this internship with my little Environmental Science associates while the other interns are four-year students in their Junior and Senior Year of Zoology decrees. Everyone is nice though, and we are all in this together, learning as we go! 

     On the side, I am also doing an internship with an ...Environmental activist group? I'm not entirely sure how to describe them with discretion. My primary Job is taking readings, measurements, pollution hazard analysis, and data collections that help tell us about the health of various streams in an area. It's significantly less eventful and you will mostly read about the wildlife clinic internship.