rehab

In a little over a month I'm planning to attend the Southwestern Wildlife Rehabilitators Symposium which will be held right down the street from where I life. The Symposium is a three day affair, kicked-off with a bluegrass concert, which is open to the public. After completion (including a seminar on necropsy), I'll be eligible to volunteer as a rehabilitator with the state fish and game department.

Each year the Wildlife Center at Adobe Mountain welcomes over 1,000 animals through the doors (and gates) of their modest facility. Most of the animals are reptiles, bats, and birds. They get a lot of owls, hawks, snakes, and even tortoises (!). I love animals in all their shapes and sizes and I'm constantly soaking up useless (some would say) information about diets, gestation periods and habitats. Most of my interest and practice thus far has been for animals of the farm variety so I'm psyched to learn more about desert wildlife.

Hiking around this state I am constantly amazed by the wildlife that thrives in the harshest of conditions. Just this weekend, trompsing around Prescott we saw so many big lizards and birds. We also saw a huge herd of antelope gracefully galloping across the plains. I want to understand how these animals adapt to this environment, I want to know what they eat and how the build their homes. I want to know what makes them ill and how I can help to fix them. I can't think of a better way to spend a weekend or two or a hundred.