Baboons and Backbone

Today’s article is a guest post coming at you from Norwegian adventurer Ragnhild, a fellow animal lover and global nomad. Ragnhild’s blog features some hard truths about animal voluntourism, but more importantly, sheds light on the life lessons we can learn from such experiences.

Greetings everyone! My name is Ragnhild and I run the travel blog Green Lights Ahead. I’m from freezing Norway and like to share my adventures from both there and everywhere else my passport might take me. Last year it brought me to Namibia, Africa, where I volunteered for two months with animals. Soon it will take me to Australia, to do a similar project, which will undoubtedly end with me being eaten by sharks. Today I’m going to share with you my experience with my frenemies that I left behind in Namibia – the hairy, dangerous and incredible baboons.

I faced many challenges as a first-time volunteer. Culture shock and sunburns were topping the list until I was put in Snoobab (read it backwards); the team that handled the baboons on a daily basis. From afar, to a newcomer, they seemed cute and playful; innocent. I was soon going to learn that they are much, much more than that.

My first lesson was about their weapons. I suddenly understood why a group of baboons are called a troop. They picked up on my nervousness immediately when I entered their enclosure. Watching me with piercing eyes, they kept at a distance until help from outside couldn’t reach me. Then they attacked. Their ears backwards, slick against their heads, screeching until they bit down on – my legs, arms, stomach, and one even got a piece of my butt. They clawed at me with nails so sharp that I still have scars.

The explanation for their behavior is the strict hierarchy baboons live in. They have a dominant male or female, who is strongest, that leads the troop. She protects them from dangers and takes care of the youngest. She also bites and chases the ones that fall out of line. No one likes to be at the bottom of a class system. The lower ones therefore always looks for someone they can put under themselves, and that day they found one – me.

“You lack true dominance,” said one of my coordinators. “You have to be able to stare them down. You have to project that if they hurt you, you will hurt them.”
“I can’t hurt them,” I responded, surprised. He sighed, loudly, “you white women are all the same – clueless to reality. This is Africa.”

From that day forward, I worked on my backbone. I straightened my shoulders. I kept my head high. And I got bitten and scratched – again and again. Until the day I realized that if I wanted to stop being prey, I would have to stop acting like it. Not a word escaped my lips as they came towards me. My heart was beating faster than the wings of a hummingbird. The first one bit me. I didn’t move an inch until the dominant female scratched my legs, and I turned my head to her and our eyes locked – she saw that I had changed, but saw it too late. I grabbed her by the neck and flung her as hard as I could. She got up seconds later – but didn’t come for me again. I was stronger than her, she knew that now. The rest of the troop stopped as well: there was a new leader in the enclosure. Me.

Thank you, Ragnhild, for this anecdote that teaches us about being confident. Not only did you stare fear in the face, but you showed it who is boss!

Have you ever had a similar experience in which you had to put on your big girl pants and do something you weren’t completely comfortable with? The few times I’ve ridden horses, I wanted to let them do their own thing, but that usually left me stranded yards behind the rest of the group. In the end, I learned you can cultivate a nurturing relationship with them while still kindly showing them who is boss. With kinkajous, though… it’s another story.

Be sure to follow Green Lights Ahead for updates on more animal + travel stories!

Interested in having a guest post on my blog? Shoot me an email: smvenzel@gmail.com. Blogging is all about being connected!

All photos for this post are copyright of Ragnhild S., Green Lights Ahead.

 

Animal Rescue in Texas

Texas–a land whose peaceful, rolling Hill Country encouraged long runs; whose cowboy boots introduced my feet to line dancing; whose karaoke bars allowed me to hone my theatrical skills; whose ticks gave me Lyme Disease; whose animals captured my heart.

I reflect fondly on my Texas adventure despite the many hardships allotted me during my six months shacking up with nearly ten people in a trailer in the Hill Country.

This was my second exposure to the labor-intensive world of animal rescue and rehabilitation, the repetitive long hours and interrupted nights of sleep. Here was my first scorpion sting,  my first encounter with wild snakes mating, my first sheep shearing, my first goat milking, the first time I touched a lion’s paw, the first (and hopefully last) time I butchered a dead horse. Texas was home to the first time I swam in my skivvies (carpe diem, people), the first time I saw a bullet wound (never mess with a Texan and his rifle), my first time driving manual all by myself (it didn’t go well), my first bed and breakfast experience (mmmm… asparagus omelet).

My initial days in Texas began with the unknown, sprouting growth and reflection in my life and career. I’ll never forget the smell of a skunk with distemper, the strength of a cardinal’s beak or the cunning minds behind the masks of raccoons. (Plus, I compiled the above video so that I really won’t ever forget just how cute a kid goat is.)

Proudly Featured in Veterinary Team Brief Magazine!

Renowned veterinary magazine Veterinary Team Brief, a publication of the NAVC, featured me in their May 2015 print publication for my work in the zoological field.

Green Sea Turtle Boat Strike: Hate and Hope

This 300-lb adult female Green suffered two propeller strikes to her shell, tearing into her organs. We documented during the patient’s intake with photos including close-ups of the wounds for the patient’s medical record. Seeing a viable female at this size in such poor condition is heartbreaking.

Early one evening, a 300-pound adult female Green arrives. She suffers dual prop wounds on the front left and right rear of her carapace and flippers. X-rays suggest she was hit by two different boats as one wound is noticeably older than the other.

It is difficult to have any hope initially, immediately taken over by a bout of overwhelming emotional and empathetic physical pain. But the lung is not breeched; we can taste the faint existence of Hope on our tongues.

But then the vet removes her finger from a deep gash, and it’s covered in a foul-smelling, yellow paste. The bowels are severed. Pockets of bacteria have already begun to form internally, untreatable with antibiotics as they have traveled outside of the bloodstream. Even if we surgically sewed shut the bowels, this sea turtle would die a gradual and uncomfortable death.

The decision to euthanize is never easy, made exceedingly more difficult when you’re staring into the eyes of one of the most ancient creatures on this planet, one whose ancestral generations filled the oceans in the era of the dinosaurs. And one whose entire population is in danger of extinction… because of you, your past and present generations.

You’re entitled to your emotions as this fecund female struggles against the needle. It is mating and nesting season for sea turtles. The statistics flash before your eyes—less than one percent makes it to adulthood, and here you stand, a witness to the dwindling numbers. It’s not my fault, you think, or is it?

She breathes her last breath, the mix of bystander raw emotions palpable. We are all scientists of varying education and experience, but we’re humans first and foremost. The air around each of us rises up with feelings of disgust, despair, anger and, worst of all, hate. Hate toward humanity. Hate that our creations, our existence, seem bent on destruction.

These feelings surge until slowly, weakly, She resurfaces, swimming through our hearts and minds—Hope. She leaves us with a firmer commitment to our cause, our purpose, our passion on this earth.

New Beginnings in the Florida Keys

Nearly 1700 islands of coral rock and mangroves make up the Florida Keys, but only 43 of them are accessible by car, linked to the mainland by 42 picturesque bridges of varying length. Of the five major islands, Key Largo is the first one you will come across after driving “the eighteen-mile stretch” cement road barrier painted robin’s egg blue. Home to the noteworthy Christ of the Deep statue, this city boasts the world’s only underwater park and is known by many as the dive capital of the world. Islamorada comes next—an often mispronounced key that provides some of the finest sportfishing our oceans have to offer. Marathon, the middle island I learned to call my home, has some of the best family tourist attractions and beaches. It is also the northern anchor to the famed Seven Mile Bridge, which Hollywood has made use of numerous times for stellar movie chase scenes. Shortly past the bridge is Big Pine Key, subdued and nature-filled and the place you’ll find the short-statured endangered Key deer. The last of the big islands is of course that southernmost point of the continental U.S., the one you’ve no doubt heard of—perhaps even visited—Key West. Night life and shopping abounds on Duval Street, the one-mile long lane of local restaurants, bars, boutiques, and gay pride.

One of many beautiful sunsets over the 7 Mile Bridge in Marathon, FL.

Situated smack dab in the middle of the Keys, 50 miles from Key Largo and 50 miles from Key West, you will find the Turtle Hospital. The owner is an odd and spritely character with the epitome of spindly legs and knobby knees, complete with a mouth that looks like it’s sucked one too many lemons. With a thin ponytail trailing past his shirt collar, and an aura that forces you to surmise he is a product of the ‘60s, you’ll still find him out and about despite his age pushing 80. He is a retired car dealer who ventured this far south in the 1980s and nearly 30 years ago, turned two neighboring properties—an old motel and a strip club—into this non-profit organization for sea turtle rescue and education.

The Turtle Hospital entrance is right on Overseas Highway, the main road that spans the length of the Keys. (Mom made me pose for this one.)

Aside from the unique opportunity of caring for sea turtles, a big draw to this job was the fact I would not have to pay rent. I would be living in a renovated 1950s motel room right on the Gulf of Mexico.   My “apartment” was twice the size of your average, affordable, single-person abode in the Keys, in a county where the price of rent is exorbitant.

Tourists forget that the locals have to work—and work hard—to live in paradise. Many people work two jobs just to get by. The average employee hourly wage in the Keys is only $10, with the cost of rent for one person averaging $900 and the daily cost of living being much higher than on the mainland. Keep in mind a Keys living unit will be quaint, often a studio/efficiency set-up. If you live in Key West, expect your rent to be double.

The downside of free rent was being on call 24/7. That’s right, if a sea turtle needed help at 4:30 AM, the rehab staff would assemble, even on our days off. If we had to work a ten-hour shift the next day, so be it. Needless to say, my sleep schedule became slightly impaired.

As with any new job, training is the first step. My first week at the Turtle Hospital entailed a lot of scrubbing tanks and feeding the animals. Water for the tanks was pulled in straight from the ocean, entering the tanks after running through a short filtration cycle. The sea turtle diet was species-dependent, consisting of Romaine lettuce, squid, fish or the occasional lobster or crab.

Five species of sea turtle are seen in Florida. Our species-specific patient numbers tended to match up with the regional population trends, except that ours were skewed toward the herbivorous Green sea turtle; we admitted those with the contagious Fibropapilloma virus to which this species is prone. Many sea turtle hospitals cannot care for those with the virus. Loggerheads were the next most common species with Hawksbills and Kemp’s Ridleys lagging behind. The Leatherback sea turtle is so rare you should count your lucky stars if you ever encounter one. None were admitted to the hospital while I was working there.

A Green sea turtle recovering from a boat hit and the Fibropapilloma virus. Green sea turtles become strictly vegetarians when they reach sub-adulthood, so lettuce is a main part of their diet in the hospital setting.

The sea turtle inhabitants were categorized as either “current patients” or “permanent residents.” The former referred to those seeking rehab and the latter meant previous patients who were deemed non-releasable by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). Various ailments included boat strike injuries, impactions, flipper entanglements, and affliction with the aforementioned Fibropapilloma virus, of which I’ll go into great detail at another point in time.

Sadly, the majority of causes for patient admittance were human-related. As such, public education was held in high value by the staff. While the primary part of my job was in animal care, I was also hired to help out as an Education Specialist, providing information-filled tours of the hospital to the general public. In many ways, this made the job reminiscent of my summer as an animal caretaker and tour guide in the Ecuadorian Amazon. But as you’ll soon find out, this experience has its own stories worth telling, too.

To Florida and Sea Turtles We Go

Preparation for my move to Florida didn’t entail much. My biggest concern was ensuring my ’92 Toyota Camry would make the drive, so I took ole Gramps to the mechanic for a good look-over. Evidently my faithful Camry was in need of a lot of work to be considered reliable for a long road trip. One thousand dollars later, my dad and I packed up and hauled out for the twenty-hour trek south to Sarasota. I was set to begin my internship at Mote Marine Laboratory on Halloween.

Gus the guinea pig made the trip to Sarasota with me. He was a good sport the entire ride down!

We stopped at a hotel when dusk settled in, somewhere shortly past the halfway point. I snuck my guinea pig into the room and made a bed for him in one of the dresser drawers. We got an early start the next morning, finding ourselves exiting the turnpike for Sarasota just after nightfall. Not more than a quarter-mile from the house where I planned to rent a room for the next few months, we approached a busy intersection. There, blinker flickering as we waited in the left turning lane, ole Gramps hit rock bottom, stalling and refusing to turn over. With cars honking and traffic lights changing, we switched the gear to neutral. I sat behind the wheel steering the tires left while my dad pushed from behind. Safely beyond the intersection, with the tires positioned straight ahead, I joined him at the rear, slowly creeping along while checking the numbers on the mailboxes we passed.

I’m known for making grand entrances. (On my travels in Ecuador, upon arrival at my temporary home in the Amazon, I started off my greeting with, “Hello, everyone… What do you suggest I do about the fact that I was just robbed?”) My Floridian inauguration was no different. I knocked on the door of the house I would be living in, and a short, plump woman with graying hair answered, a terrier barking at her heels.

“Hi,” I said. “I hope it’s okay I parked my car there. I can’t really move it without a tow truck.”

And so the adventures of what would be a three-and-a-half year stay in Florida began.

The next day, I was told the distributor cap on my car needed replacing (and soon would my savings), so after a few mornings of carpooling with other interns renting in the area, I had Old Faithful back in my possession. During my stay in Sarasota, I would visit the mechanic three more times; once due to a flat tire that could not be fixed with a simple patch job, and twice from issues starting the car. (It turned out the neutral safety switch was going bad; the easy fix was to just throw the car into neutral if it would not start in park.) By the end of my internship, I questioned if it would be worth putting any more money into the vehicle, if, heaven forbid, some other ailment were to befall my precious Camry.

Too add to the car trouble, I also found myself searching for another room to rent after my landlady’s terrier bit me a second time. A black cloud seemed to be hovering above my head, with bad luck around every corner, but it did not last long. Through a friend of a friend, I met a 75-year-old lady on Longboat Key, just a few miles from Mote, who offered to rent me a room in her waterfront condo. For the same price, I ate my meals in front of an endless turquoise-blue screen, dotted with the occasional bottlenose dolphin. Life, I thought, cannot get better than this.

In addition to working with sea turtles, I paved an opportunity for myself to volunteer with the seahorses, sharks and coral in the public aquarium part of Mote, as well as spending a field day surveying the Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin population in the surrounding Sarasota Bay. While no marine mammals were admitted as patients to the Dolphin and Whale Hospital during my internship, I was able to spend a small amount of time assisting the dolphin trainers when they worked with the permanent resident dolphin at the aquarium. These experiences further molded my desire to live and work with the sea.

Seahorses are fragile at any age, but especially at one week old! The zip ties help them learn to use their tails to grab onto things.

Seahorses are the only animals in which the male gives birth. They have a pouch that can hold hundreds of baby seahorses at a time!

Over the course of my internship with the Sea Turtle Hospital at Mote, I reflected on what I had learned. Caring for rescued marine animals proved to be similar in many regards to my days spent rehabilitating land creatures—clean, feed, medicate, clean, repeat. However, unlike my previous work, a great deal of mechanical maintenance was required. Each tank had its own filtration system, a complex combination of methods designed to optimize the salinity, turbidity and temperature of the water. As with maintaining a swimming pool, daily backwashes and pH testing were also required. And, unlike any of the animals I had worked with up until then, none were in such peril of extinction as these ancient reptiles.

As the months went by, I developed a sense of urgency to save these endangered animals. The job search led me to apply for a full-time position at the Turtle Hospital in the Florida Keys. I drove down for a day-long interview and was offered the job. I weighed the pros and cons, and though anxiety clenched my gut at the prospect of yet another beginning, I felt I had nothing to lose. Two days later, I called to accept the position as a sea turtle Rehabilitation Specialist. And so it came to be that four months after I made the drive from Ohio to Florida, I found myself setting up shack in a little piece of island paradise in the fabulous Florida Keys.

“Beam,” a Green sea turtle, developed buoyancy issues after a boat hit. He was not a candidate for release due to his inability to dive down; he was later adopted by the Idaho Aquarium.

A Bump in the Road

The Texas Hill Country is a gorgeous, endless expanse of desert oasis. In its own quiet way, I think it’s a little piece of paradise.

My Texas escapades were cut short when I was diagnosed, then undiagnosed, then re-diagnosed with Lyme disease. The end of my six-month internship was nearing, but I’d been hired on for an additional one-year commitment as an apprentice. That position would entail an increased load of medical work in the animal clinic coupled with an advanced leadership role. I’d still be living in a trailer with six other people, but The Apprentice Trailer instead of one of three intern trailers. I was excited in many ways but also beginning to doubt my abilities as I noticed my body slowly getting weaker. Soon, standing became an actual task. My arms ached when I reached for things above my head. The joints in my fingers screamed with fire when I pressed syringes to release gruel into the crying mouths of baby birds.

My roommate, Brandi, had recently gone to the urgent care after feeling tired and nauseous. These symptoms alone could have been linked to the common flu or simply heat exhaustion. However, a tell-tale bull’s-eye rash on her stomach suggested a tick might be to blame. Sure enough, a blood test revealed that she had Lyme disease. Once on antibiotics, she began to feel much better.

I made sure to say goodbye to all the animals, including this guinea pig in a cone recovering from surgery.

Initially overlooking my increasing fatigue and acute pain as the result of being over-worked, I started to become concerned after speaking with my supervisor and asking for a lightened work load. I spent a week manning the phone hotline, working the normal 9-5 desk job, but just taking down notes from callers with a pen or keyboard created a nauseating pain. At times my joints were so stiff, I had to try using my left hand, only to find those joints stiffened just as quickly. It was time to hit up the doctor.

Offering a brief overview of my day-to-day interactions with animals, the doctor asked if there was any possibility that I could have been exposed to Lyme disease.

“Funny that you should ask,” I commented. “My roommate was just treated for Lyme.” In fact, I could very easily have been exposed to a deer tick seeing as I spent days working in the deer yard nursing more than fifty orphaned fawns. I didn’t have that bulls-eye rash, though, like my roommate had. The rash occurs in 60-80% of infected cases, according to the CDC. I guess I’ve never really fit into the standard “norm.”

The doctors started me on pre-cautionary antibiotics and poked my arm for a blood test, assuring me that the antibiotics would do no harm to my body in the event that I did not test positive for Lyme. I took the twice-a-day Doxycicline for almost a week. The medicine was intended for a 21-day cycle, but when the test came back negative, the doctor said to stop popping the pills. He was a doctor, so I listened to him. He referred me to a rheumatologist and general practitioner suggesting I be tested for a whole panel of diseases and disorders ranging from arthritis to multiple sclerosis to lupus, even fibromyalgia, which I was sure, if it ever did hit me, wouldn’t ever happen until my elderly years. Being out-of-state, the health insurance was posing to be a very difficult issue. And, my symptoms persisted, in fact worsening to the point that I had trouble walking.

I struggled with leaving a place that cared so much about the environment it even cautioned guests to look out for lizards, caterpillars, snakes and spiders on the road. Although I would have been fine with one less tarantula roaming the universe.

When I commit to something, I follow it all the way through. Despite the discomfort, I managed to finish out my internship. But due to financial reasons, my overall poor health, and the fact that I desperately needed some coddling from Mom and Dad, I postponed the start of my apprenticeship. Immediately upon my arrival home, I was bombarded with doctor appointments, needle pricks, and the anxiety-inducing waiting game. They filled 12 vials with my blood. I only know because I saw them on the table beforehand. I would have collapsed in the chair if I dared peek during the process.

Luckily, my new general practitioner was determined to figure out what was causing my body to feel this way. When the Lyme test came back negative, he scrutinized it, noticing the range was border-line. Instead of writing off Lyme disease once again, he sent it out for a further test called the Western Blot. About a week later, the results came back indicating I was indeed positive for Lyme. It was back on the antibiotics. After one month, I felt better in some ways but worse in others, and so my cycle was extended for yet another month.

As the Lyme disease progressed, tasks as simple as feeding the song birds became a painful ordeal. Trying to pinch tweezers or push syringes, my joints locked up and felt like they were on fire.

I followed up with an infectious disease doctor who also treated an infection in my leg that resulted from a weakened immune system. I never knew infections could be so painful! It has been over two years now, and the scar on my leg remains. I was self-conscious about it for the first year, but now I think it tells my story quite well. Some people get dealt unlucky hands. The ill-fated must remember that no matter how far from reach the rainbow lies, it’s always there, always attainable.

As my body began recuperating, I decided it was best to remain active instead of vegetating on the sofa. Though I was exhausted, it still drove me nearly insane not being able to run for what was now six months time. Instead of running, I took up leisurely bike rides and swims. I began helping out my neighbors and friends of friends to both keep busy and bring in enough money to pay off my student loans. I cleaned houses and cooked family dinners, did other people’s grocery shopping, chauffeured kids and dogs, and slowly worked my way up to yard work. All the while searching for the next step, my bones gradually felt at ease and my energy level increased. My dad said he knew I was feeling better when I started talking in a British accent again.

After more than six months of a life that had to change, to mold, to readjust, a life I didn’t know if I would get back, I had a lot of painful firsts. They were followed by more jovial seconds. The first time I came back from a run, I wanted to cut my legs off from the cramping and strain. The next time I went out, I couldn’t stop running. The first time I strung my guitar, my fingers didn’t want to form the chord shapes. The next time they wanted to pluck away like a monkey with a hammer. The first time I was able to run my fingertips along the faux ivory of that wooden, upright piano I’d played since I was eight years old, I had to double-check that my joints weren’t actually on fire. The second time, I couldn’t stop composing. Finally, I could open jars again, I could write, I could put my hair in a ponytail without experiencing excruciating pain, burning, fatigue, and stiffness. Oh how I’d taken for granted these little things in life.

I was sure going to miss the opossums! They are one of those animals that is so ugly it’s cute.

By the time three months in Perrysburg rolled around, I was ready to be on my own again. I didn’t quite feel 100%, but I had gone from needing to ask for help to being able to bite through the pain. And soon, I hoped, there would no longer be any physical distress, other than that spawned by physical labor in the animal world.

Time spent at home made me reflect and realize that I wasn’t quite done paving opportunities for myself. When I was in junior high, I wanted to be a marine biologist. A part of me still felt called to protect our oceans. I declined the apprenticeship in rural Texas and accepted yet another internship at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida working at the Dolphin & Whale and Sea Turtle Hospitals. I wouldn’t be earning even a stipend, and I’d have to find a place to rent, but I had money saved up and so much more to learn. I think nearly every day how very different my life could have been if I’d gone back to Texas. I would probably still be there now, three years later. But so much has happened since then, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, a million dollars, or even a million guinea pigs.

A Deer, a Bullet, and a Lesson on Symmetry

In baby season, there were close to 100 orphaned fawns in the deer yard. Axis and white-tailed fawns liked to nibble on clothes when they finished sucking from their bottles.

At the start of a closing clinic shift, we received a call about an injured deer on the side of the road just a few miles away. Apprentice LeeAnn and I drove to check out the situation. The caller said he was traveling across the country and passed by this deer who was still breathing at the time of the call. When the odometer hit 1.9 miles, LeeAnn and I craned our necks out the window, searching the grass. Spotting the animal, we parked the CRV behind another car. A man stood by the vehicle’s trunk.

“Hello!” I greeted him. He nodded in response. “So, you’re traveling across the country?”

“No.” He looked at me confused. I was confused.

“Did you call us about this deer?”

“No,” he said.

No matter their age, deer are skittish creatures, so tasks like fixing a broken leg need to be done with extreme quiet and caution.

“Okay, well… we’re going to go check on him.” I had no idea who this man was let alone why he was milling about in the area of a profusely bleeding animal.

Approaching the deer, we stopped short. This guy hadn’t been hit by a car. Two lead bullets had sliced through him, a through-and-through in the jugular and another lodged just above the eye. Not seeing any signs of life, we felt his nose. It was still warm, and the flies had not yet accumulated on the wet, crimson blood. We had probably arrived mere minutes after he died.

Texan law allows for public hunting on select private lands to help the state manage the surplus of white-tailed deer. Property owners can apply for a drawing in which the government leases land from individuals for a public hunt. However, the hunting is monitored during a set check-in and check-out time. This deer had been illegally shot.

While LeeAnn and I were processing the situation, a man with a rifle hopped over the fence across the street. Our eyes followed him and the man by the parked car as the two ambled toward us. I gritted my teeth, trying to contain my anger, logically thinking the man with the rifle was the shooter. I had a dictionary of choice words for him but was torn between morality and safety. All for speaking my mind, I wasn’t too sure how I would feel about a bullet in my foot. I don’t like guns and as such had not been around them. This was my first time seeing a rifle up close. But I did know one thing about weaponry; never test the patience of a man with a gun in his hand.

The rifle man squatted down and surveyed the deer.

“Yep, just what I thought. One through-and-through, one lodged.” That much I could have told him. He rested the butt of the rifle on the ground and whipped out a knife. Ohmigod, I thought. He’s going to saw this deer’s head off with a pocketknife. LeeAnn and I exchanged looks of concern.

Rounding up all the fawns in the yard for a head count was never an easy task–especially at night!

“We’re with Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation,” LeeAnn stated. I wiped my brow, glad she took the reins.

“Ya’ll know Krystal?” he said.

“Yeah, she’s my boss,” I said.

“She’s my daughter.”

Great, I thought. My boss’s father is a hunter, a felon, and about to chop off the head of this deer. And never mind the unnamed mystery man in the background. The parked car man stood behind Rifle Man, silent as a mute.

“Gotta keep these bullets for evidence.”

“What? Evidence? Huh?”

“I heard the shot,” he continued. “You can’t shoot deer out here.” I relaxed slightly, realizing Rifle Man was not the deer shooter, but my relaxation was short-lived. He inserted the blade tip under the skin at the deer’s temple, carved a half circle, then stuck his thumb and two fingers into the bullet hole, extracting the bullet. He inspected it, rolling the silver bell between his fingers.

Ohmigod, that’s a bullet. That’s a bullet. And it’s really bloody. I surprised myself by remaining on both feet.

Orphaned fawns who are also ill first recover in the clinic. White tail and axis fawns look almost identical, except axis fawns have a stripe of darker fur running along their spine. Both have prominent white spots.

I cleared my throat. “So you, uh, you live right there?”

“Yep. Own that there land plus ‘bout twenty acres back.”

“Nice.” I gulped, still recovering from the hard core scenario that had just played out before my eyes.

LeeAnn and I loaded the deadweight deer onto a stretcher and into the back of the CRV, heave-ho-ing as we lifted. I couldn’t wait to share this story with my trailer-mates.

You might question why a Texan would bother calling in about a deer needing rescue when all natives appear to carry guns and hunt deer. I don’t have an answer for that. Maybe you’re asking why in tarnation we would go out to save a deer when some deer species, like the white-tailed, are overpopulated and hunting is allowed anyway. I have asked the same question, and I came to this conclusion. It is my job as an animal rehabber to ensure that no animal suffers. If a deer gets shot in the gut during a hunt, I should hope he doesn’t have to bleed out a slow and painful end. Similarly, if a deer is hit by a car, I feel obligated to step in to prevent a torturous death and to rehabilitate the animal if possible. My role as an animal rehabber is to care for an individual animal. Though I cannot undo the obliteration, destruction and domination by humans over other creatures on our earth, I can try to offset the consequences.

Bottlefeeding fawns became an art form. When there were not enough bottle holders for the number of fawns, we held bottles between our legs, under our armpits and in both hands to maximize feeding time and efficiency.

I believe we should live in harmony with the environment. This is not a new age idea, but you can call me a tree hugger if you want. I simply feel interconnected with my surroundings. Never has this belief been stronger than the days since I lived in the Amazon rainforest. Living among the Quechua tribe, I witnessed the beauty and sustainability of a reciprocal relationship between man and earth. It is not only functional, but it is also renewable.

Both the Quechua people and my fellow Americans live in a dually symmetrical and asymmetrical world, but the details are reversed. In the USA, our land is mapped out on a measured, checkered grid of brownstones, blacktop and sidewalk, but these cityscapes and suburbs extinguish the natural terrain. In the Amazon, a walk to the river for water will take a Quechua tribesman around a tree instead of through it, winding an asymmetrical web much like the inconsistent pattern of my travels, yet a path that successfully nurtures and balances nature. The symmetry between man and the land in the jungle is based on the cycle of give and take, not take, take, take.

In Kendalia, Texas, I got a glimpse of my life in the Amazon, living simply and surrounded by nature. Yet, here I was caring for sick, injured and orphaned animals of which more than half were in my hands because of a man-made society encroaching on the natural world. This was my chance to bring the Amazon home, to reverse the curse, if I may; to right some wrongs.

The field of zoology offers many different career options but there is a reason I choose to work in wildlife rehabilitation. It is my sincere hope that I am making a difference.

Sheep Shearing 101

Sheep shearing is a team effort. To minimize stress on the animal, it is important to shear quickly, but with thin skin, going too fast can draw blood from the smallest nick.

What I most loved about WRR was the variety of animals. I don’t mean the diversity found in a zoo setting–African savannah or Arctic exhibits, for example–but rather the categories of animals. I grouped the critters under one of four labels: companion animals, native wildlife, exotics or livestock. Each type requires specific protocol for handling, rearing and maintenance. Livestock upkeep involves annual sheep shearing, and equine hoof trimming is being introduced at WRR as well. During the course of an internship, it is important to be assertive, especially in the zoological world. I’ve been performing manual labor for free (zero, zip, nada), so to make sure I learned the absolute most from my time at WRR, I weaseled my way into helping with the livestock.

Sheep shearing is as hard core as it gets. The process takes a great amount of focus, commitment, teamwork, communication and muscle. You might be thinking, Baaaah, they’re just grass-eating fluff balls on peg legs. How hard can it be to shear one? Allow me to paint the picture in more detail.

First, all the sheep must be corralled from one pasture into a smaller penned-in area called a lock out. That’s actually the easy part because the sheep tend to follow the food. If you shake a bucket of feed, they’ll more than likely go right where you want them. The hard part is the one-on-one. Minimally–excluding sheep shearing experts–the sheep wrangling takes two people. Sheep must never be looked at straight on because they view this as a challenge associated with predators. As animals of prey, they flee. Honing in on one sheep agreed on by the wranglers, no individual in particular, both people side waddle toward the animal, arms stretched wide. Essentially, this creates a wrestling arena that gets increasingly smaller in size.

We sheared llama, too! They are perhaps even less cooperative than their sheep brothers.

When one of the wranglers senses good timing, he or she initiates the contact. Basically, the wrangler dives right in and either grabs the horns or clenches a tuft of fleece. The sheep will buck and jump and thrash and kick, so it is important to be aligned out of harm’s way. Once the sheep has been grasped, he is pulled toward the shearing station. A strong grip must be maintained because the sheep will fight the entire time. If the wrangler loses hold, the sheep becomes so skittish that catching him again in the same day is unlikely.

At the shearing station, the wranglers flip the sheep onto his back by squeezing the legs together and turning him over. Someone comes in with the shears while the sheep is pinned to the ground. Getting the job done as fast as possible minimizes stress on the animal. However, sheep skin is thin and can be sliced almost effortlessly with the blade. While the shearer wants to move quickly, he or she has to keep in mind how much pressure is being put on the blade. If a sheep does get cut, spraying a liquid wound sealer helps minimize blood loss. The metallic silver shine of the spray gives the sheep a hip look, too.

Just like shaving a beard, the blade is a particular width relative to the thickness of the sheep’s coat. The amount of wool that falls off of one sheep would make enough toupees for ten bald men. At WRR, we used the wool as enrichment and bedding. Non-profits make a rule out of the triumvirate idiom “reduce, reuse, recycle.” (Innovation cuts down on finances.)

We discovered a colony of maggots inside the necrotic horn of a male sheep during his shearing. No matter how much we flushed out the area, the wrigglers continued to appear. The odor given off by this dying, infested tissue was even more unbearable than the trailer skunk smell. I think I reached a personal record for time to hold my breath. I didn’t think my job could get more intense than being dragged around on the dirt by an angry sheep, but when you add in the maggots, I think it does.

All the wool was kept as enrichment for the animals. Some make beds with it while others simply throw it around their enclosure.

Hoof trimming on horses, mules and donkeys can be particularly challenging the first time around. Equine hooves are really just giant toe nails. Eating a diet too rich in protein can cause the nails to grow exponentially fast. Hooves can also grow too fast if a horse is given too much water after overheating. Without a rough surface to naturally file the hooves down, caretakers have to manually trim them. All of our equines were rescued from neglectful circumstances in which their hooves foundered. This means they were overgrown to the point that they curled at the tips. The quick in a hoof, or the supply of blood vessels, lengthens during foundering thereby increasing blood flow. Consequently, the hoof becomes hot to the touch. Foundering, also called laminitis, is incredibly painful and, unfortunately, irreversible. But the damage can be lessened if caught in the beginning phases and by continued treatment. Otherwise, the hoof bone can rotate and puncture through the hoof, in which case, due to intense suffering, the animal is humanely euthanized.

In order to make the hoof trimming process run more smoothly, and in the interest of both the animals and caretakers, we implemented tactile training sessions to get the animals accustomed to our touch. Half of our equines feared humans, a result of their abusive past. We needed to earn their trust and gain their comfort in this medical situation. Some days, walking into the pasture with a bowl of carrots and apples, the equines still were not interested in me. To prevent them from regressing, back-pedaling from the progress we’d made up to that point, I would have to postpone the session to another day. Training takes a great deal of patience, which I sometimes don’t have but thankfully am learning to build.

Of Maggots and Scorpions

Most often, our opossum patients were babies found wiggling or scurrying along the road nearby where their mother had been hit by a car. Sometimes, the babies were so young they were still latched onto the dead mother’s nipples and had to be pried off. This is how the mother transports the youngins in their first couple weeks of life.

Some of the required duties of an animal caretaker are absolutely revolting. I’m not talking about menial chores like scraping feces out of enclosures or pulling out fresh carcasses from crates. This is more along the lines of tasks as disgusting as the “Meat Run.”

An adult opossum came in one night, rescued off the side of the road. Having been struck by a car a day or two earlier, he was in fairly bad shape. Apprentice Emily had been upstairs cleaning his wounds when she resurfaced on the ground floor.

“Um,” she started, “does anyone feel particularly excited about helping me clean maggots out of an opossum’s rear end?” (She of course used a more scientific term for “rear end,” but I don’t find it appropriate to write here.)

Evidently the idea of wiggling white worms in mass numbers causes most people to cringe. I stomach this better than seeing the sawed off head of a horse staring at me from a bucket in the freezer, so I volunteered. We used fluid-filled syringes to force out the maggots. Boy, did those maggots keep on coming. They gushed out by tens then hundreds until a total of nearly three hundred had washed out of the crevices of this poor creature.

Tarantulas have the same effect on me that maggots have on most other people. At the sight of them, my skin turns in on itself, a hair-raising tickle creepy-crawling up the length of my body. I thought I would never see a tarantula again until my return to Ecuador. Then I ended up in Texas, one of only a few states in the U.S. that provides suitable territory for these hairy beasts. My primary goal while in Kendalia was to avoid tarantulas at all costs. I escaped with only photos and stories of sightings by others. As it turns out, I should have been more concerned about the scorpions.

Newborn opossums were kept in crates with sleeping sacks to mimic their marsupial mother’s natural pouch. Once weening from syringe feeding began, they were moved into wire cages.

One night around eleven, I answered the 24-hour hotline about a deer needing rescue. Groggy and donning my pajamas–and needing to be at work in just seven hours–I opened the door to my trailer. A staff member was driving by while doing the clinic closing rounds, so I put my hand over the mouth of the phone to call out to her. But as I leaned out the door, one of my bare feet stepped over the threshold and above the door step, landing directly on a baby scorpion. The pain from its sting was instant, hurting more than a bee sting. Especially with my luck, my foot happened to find one of the itty bitty scorpions who have more toxin than the adults. I screamed wildly, mixing the pain with anger, sleepiness and frustration. Evidently, I threw the phone down because when the staff member came running toward me, I noticed her peering through the open doorway. The phone lay on the floor inside, the battery rolling next to it.

Okay, okay, so I over-reacted to the scorpion sting, but can you blame me? It hurt, I’ll tell you that much. However, after three hours of constant ice in the form of frozen vegetables, the pain was gone. Unfortunately, I still had my disheveled appearance and beaten pride to remind me of the episode.

At the juvenile stage, opossums are running about. Once on a solid diet, they were ready for release upon reaching a certain size and weight, approximately the size of a human hand. Many well-intended people brought us a juvenile they thought was orphaned due to its small size, when, in fact, it was perfectly equipped to be out on its own.

Embarrassment, however, does not come easily for me. This is one reason why I take it upon myself to be publicly foolish, with or without a stage. The weekly karaoke nights at a local bar in Blanco, the next town over, provided me spotlight opportunities to do just this. Really, I’m all about having a (level-headed) good time. My karaoke escapades included covering for a co-worker who gave up mid-way trying to sing a Spanish song. I had never heard the song before but I understood the lyrics, so I made up my own tune while acting out the words I sang. I also surprised myself and many others by serenading my then-boyfriend with “Kiss the Girl” in the Jamaican accent of Sebastian the crab from Disney’s The Little Mermaid. I do not flaunt PDA so I really confused the boy on how to respond to the serenade. (Come on, people. You know me. It was all G-rated.) And perhaps my favorite, I performed my signature literal interpretation song and dance to a triage of hit karaoke tunes. On my birthday, I was so entranced by the music that I closed my eyes and bounced up and down while belting out the lines of “It’s Raining Men.” That’s when I bit the microphone. It was bound to happen. My mouth was open and I lost my balance, eyes closed, all that jumping, when my teeth came slamming down on the mike. The crowd of regulars hooted and howled. Me? Well, I kept on singing and dancing.