Wildlife Images Rehabilitation and Education Center

Rain: On Thursday before she left, Gram took us to a nearby place called Wildlife Images. It’s a rehabilitation and education center that takes in compromised animals that wouldn’t survive well in the wild, and cares for them. Some animals wind up there after having been injured (usually by people) and others if they have been human-imprinted and don’t how to take care of themselves properly (an example being a cougar who some people had tried to raise as a pet and de-clawed, then decided that they couldn’t handle). Here’s a link to their website:

http://www.wildlifeimages.org/

Part of they way they raise money to keep all the animals is by giving tours around the facilities. We went on one of these and had an awesome (and very enthusiastic) tour guide named Roy who showed us all around and told us the story behind each animal. One of my favorite stops was our first one, in an eagle enclosure. They have a few bald eagles at the center and they let you get really close up to them. We got to go into the part of the eagle enclosure that was a little building with a big roll-up window. Roy opened it and there they were, with nothing in between them and us. None of the three eagles in there could fly (one had run into a power line, another had been shot by a hunter, and I’m not sure about the third) but one particularly curious gal, Mrs. Jefferson, got as close as she could. Roy said that one time she actually flew into the building during a tour and landed on him, so he keeps a walking stick handy just to block her from hopping up the window. She looked like she probably wouldn’t have minding eating one of the smaller members of our group for lunch if she could, but she was beautiful.

My other favorite part of the trip was that I got to spend a lot of the trip nerding out over seeing animals from my favorite childhood books… red-tailed hawks and grizzlies from Animorphs, peregrine falcons from My Side of the Mountain, wolves from Julie of the Wolves, otters and badgers from Redwall… fun stuff. I’d never seen a badger in real life, so that was awesome. I half expected it to be carrying around a little shield and sword, but no such luck  : ( . 

Samantha: Wildlife Images is one of those places that I'm grateful for, for reminding me how the way we live interrupts the lives of other animals, and how we sometimes take responsibility for it. It's a place where broader thinking humans aid the creatures injured by our whimsy. Yeah. Deep stuff. It also reminded me of the sort of work that I had been considering before I went through the college machine. Some day, when I've accrued enough land and/or cash, opening a preserve would be so cool. In any case, I really appreciate the work that volunteers and employees at WI do. The animals are very clearly well cared for. On each enclosure there was displayed the cost of maintaining each animal; a badger cost about $5,000 a year! Each animal seemed content enough with its condition. Like Rain said, our tour guide was a lively gent by the name of Roy, who we learned was a retired wilderness and river guide. He told us that he really loved volunteering at Wild life Images. He was great at his job. My favorite moment of Roy was when he was radioing a coworker to give them our location at Critter Creek (kitschy, but it works), and mistakenly (or maybe purposefully)  said "Cripple creek." I was pleased, and he could see that. 

Here are some animals! 

Mrs. Jefferson running amuck.

Mrs. Jefferson wants in, but Roy won't let her.

A barn owl. Roy asks, "What were they called before there were barns?" Also, their disc shaped faces help them hear, and their eyes are totally dark because they only hunt at night, unlike owls with yellow irises. 

a Golden Eagle, relaxing with a barn owl

He has a bum shoulder, drooping, due to colliding with a truck. 

Red shouldered hawk. The one on the right is a rare variety with white dappling.  His remains have been requested for preservation in one of our natural history museums.

American Kestrel!  

Coati Mundi!

White ground squirrel chasing its tail! It did this the whole time we were looking at it. 

Otter blanket! Apparently this Otter was in Evan Almighty, if anyone of you bothered to watch that movie. Roy told us that for this otter's birthday they threw a party, complete with a chocolate fountain. Samantha: The only time I ever saw a chocolate fountain was at my junior prom.

Unusually shy otter.

It was a hot day to be a bear.

Friendly black bear.

Grizzly bear!

Rain: Yoo-hoo, mister bear! 

It's still a bear! Ta- da!

Clark the Cougar. This poor guy would normally be able to jump vertically 5 meters, but the people who kept him as a house pet had a veterinarian severe the tendons in his front legs. That vet lost his licence, and the people were heavily fined.  

"Whatchoo want?"

Try to restrain yourself.