Serrated Beaks, a Seagull Spa, and Curious Raccoons

Working at the Hampton Bays Rescue Center: October 26th

Today was my first day working at the Wildlife Rescue Center in Hampton Bays. I did a lot in my first day there including observing and working with many different animals. The first animal I observed was a Gannet, a large white seabird. Unfortunately, he was not eating his food, so while we were giving him his fluids we also had to force feed him his fish. First, we gave him his fluids and to do this we needed to use a syringe connected to a long thin tube. This thin tube was placed down his throat, and once we did that, we pushed the fluid out of the tube using the syringe. After we completed this task, we gave him his fish and got him to eat it by pushing it down his throat.

Unfortunately, I was not allowed to handle the Gannet because of how incredibly dangerous they are. Their beaks are serrated and have the ability to slice through skin like a hot knife through butter. They are also very dangerous because they are extremely fast animals whose first instinct when annoyed or threatened is to poke out the eyes of their the individual aggravating them. They are beautiful animals and I am glad that I was able to observe his routine care procedure because I was able to learn a lot about an animal that I have never seen nor heard of before today.

After observing the Gannet's treatment routine, I was given my first volunteer job: bathing the seagulls, cleaning their cages, and replenishing their food and water. The first thing I did was use a towel to correctly remove the Seagulls from their cages. Once I did this, I placed them in their warm bath tub where they could clean themselves while I finished cleaning their cage. When I cleaned each cage, I first removed their food and water bowl. After that, I removed the dirty towels and newspaper located under the towels from their cage. After I did that, I placed down clean newspaper and then two clean towels on top of it. Now that the cage was finished, I moved on to the next step and cleaned out their food and water bowl. Once they were clean, I filled their water bowl with fresh water and placed it back in their cage. Next was refilling their food bowl, so first I grabbed around 8 sardines and placed them in the bowl. I then filled the bowl with a little bit of water, and then I covered the fish in vitamin B-1 powder to help the bird remain strong and healthy. I also sprinkled some salt over the fish; these birds have glands designed for breaking down salt in their food, so if they do not utilize these on a regular basis, they would not be able to handle high salt intake, which would cause damage when the bird is released into the wild.

I also had to clean the geese cage, and as you can see it was very messy but I find the before and after photo quite satisfying.

After I completed cleaning the birds cages, I was able to spend the rest of my time observing two baby raccoons that we are housing for the winter. Because they are too young to survive on their own throughout the winter, we are taking care of them until it is safe to release them. Sadly, I am not allowed to handle them because they only allow staff members who are rabies vaccinated to, due to obvious heath reasons. However, it was still amazing to observe these adorable babies so up-close. I have never had the opportunity to be face-to-face with a raccoon before, especially because of how stealthy they are in the wild.

Today was a very eventful first day at the Rescue Center, and even though I was not able to observe much in the medical realm I still learned a lot about animal care and how to sustain a healthy environment for healing wildlife. I am looking forward to continuing my work there and observing more medical procedures and treatments.