Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man. --Stewart Udall

I have not been able to blog for the past couple of days due to the fact that our internet has not been working. It seems that a lot of things have not been working, including; the toilet, the microwave, the internet, and the bathroom sink. Now, with the exception of the bathroom all of those thing are fixed.


We have so many fawns come in, now we have over thirty. There is a group of 16 that are living in a fenced in area, overnight and it nice to see there progress. We currently have 31 raccoons, of all of the raccoons seem to have different ages, patterns, and personalities. I never realized how diverse raccoons are. Some of the coon's coats are very dark and mostly black, while other are also blonde or have hint of red. They also have many different personalities.


Several times we have been able to take the juvy raccoons outside to play in the grass. They are so adorable playing in the grass and playing with flowers. The raccoons are able to chase fly and bumblebees and smell new smells. It just shows that the are one step closer to being released.


Its hard sometimes to be out here, so far away from West Monroe, where everything is familiar, but I feel like I have learned a lot so far. Not just about wildlife, but also about different regions of the United States and how what is normal and common for a Virginians is foreign or wierd to someone who has lived in Ouachita Parish the majority of her life.


"If you want to save a species, simply decide to eat it. Then it will be managed - like chickens, like turkeys, like deer, like Canadian geese. "
Ted Nugent

Week 2--Massive Deer Death

Sometimes it is rally changeling to be up here. For example, last week we had a several deer died and all of our deer got diarrhea. And let me tell you 25 deer with diarrhea is not a fun thing. So, the intern coordinator and the internships (me and 3 other girls in their early twenties) were on a mission to figure out what had to the deer. First, we thought it may be a bacteria that causes scoures, a disease found in cervids. The four interns disinfected the entire deer garage and disinfected the deer's enclosures. Also, we started giving the deer antibiotics to fight the bacteria lurking in the deer intestine.


After two days the deer were still sick and two more had died. We brainstormed to see if we could figure out what was wrong with the deer: what it a viral infection, a flat worm parasite, or something we did wrong? Our coordinator ask us when the deer's health started to deterriorate. I said it was right after we bought a new bag of food. That's when we realized that it most be the goat-milk powder we use to make the deer's milk replacement formula. One of the girls checked the label on the bag of formula powder and realized it was a higher concentration then the bag we'd used the week before.


None of us ever considered that the milk was killing the deer. It was the same brand of formula mix as the first mix we used and it was for the same age animal. But this time we bought the 50lb bag instead of the 15lb bag. And the concentration was different. THe 15lb bag requires two cups of water to every cup of powder, whereas; the 50lb bag requires a 3:1 ratio.


Once we realized our mistake we were about to fix it and the deer are going well, but it sucks knowing that if one of us had taken 20 seconds to read the bag that 6 fawns would still be alive.

Week 1

Sunday marked the end of my first week at Roanoke Wildlife Rescue in southern Virginia. I had no idea it was going to be this much work. I worked 8 days straight, most days I worked 11-13 hours.

There are four interns total. Two of them are local and the other girl is from Chicago. The four of us girls are in charge of the care of the rabies vector animals (raccoons, skunks, foxes). We also have a large role in the care of the fawns. We have new animals coming in every day.

I am learning about animal care, veterinary methods, and other skills.