How to Become a Wildlife Rehabilitator

Video Transcript

"Well, this is my first job, and I've been here nine years. Basically, I was still in the human medical field. I was still doing physical therapy, home help, and I was also volunteering at the zoo several days a week, and so I had ended up bringing an injured bird or bunny, I think, out here, and was talking with the director at the time. And in the course of talking, just told her that it just came up that I had done this all my life, and so it ended up either I think I brought something else in, maybe a couple months later, or something, and she mentioned that they had--the board had okay'd a salary for a person, another staff person could come work. And she said that anybody at the zoo that would like the job, let me know. And so I went home and talked to my husband, and it meant taking about a significant cut in pay. As, you know, I was now making about a quarter of what I was making, salary wise, but we talked it over and so he was supportive, and I got the job. When I started here I was basically just doing it all once I first started, and that's pretty much, like I said, pretty much all of your training in wildlife rehab is learning as your doing and learning on the fly. Because even now things--there is at least one thing a year that comes in that I've never seen before. You know, either an animal or a situation. And you just have to know who to call, and that's what really helps about having these nationwide organizations and this network that you can look up and go, oh, okay, shearwaters, yes those birds, stay out in the ocean most of their lives. We got one blown in after Katrina, so but I was able to pick up the phone and call Tri State, a bird rehabilitation facility that deals with them all the time. So, that's what you have to do. It's all, when you come up with something that you haven't seen before, at least you know who to call that has, and you can get that information. So it's a lot like, especially in--now, baby season is going to vary, different states, different times a year, but May and June is just pretty much like Friday the 13th, full moon, at your local yard. It stays like that. That chaotic through the months of May and June it's just crazy, and so there's a lot of just keeping your head down and oh, okay, this crisis, let me deal with that, this crisis, let me deal with that. But it's a lot of learning and adjusting on the fly to whatever happens to show you."