Cedar Run Internship New Experiences For Me

Releases

Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge, Medford, NJ

Animal Care Intern

Avery Berkowitz, Stanford Class of 2016

Interesting Cases Challenges Takeaways

*Funded in part by Dr. Donna Bouley’s Bass Fellows Award

• Rehabilitates all native wildlife

• Located ~25 minutes from Medford, NJ

• Has a nature/education center that

helps fund rehab center

• Non-profit that receives no state/federal

funding

• 3 month internship in wildlife rehab

center

• Lived in staff/intern house

• Raised rescue kittens in house

• Came in middle of “baby season”

• Participated in all aspects of

rehabilitation

• Trained volunteers/other interns

• I was one of only a few rabies vaccinated

workers – long hours with raccoons,

skunks, and groundhogs!

• I was the last intern to leave, about a

month as the only intern – therefore lots of

extra work

• My previous experience allowed me to do

more than other interns

• Worked with groundhogs

• Worked with fawns – fawn

release

• Worked with an osprey

• Held a bald eagle

• Practiced IM injections

• Learned to tube-feed bunnies

• Tube fed raptors – emaciation

protocol

• New ways of doing things – idea

exchange

• Lived at workplace

• Raptor releases

• Squirrel, bunny, groundhog releases

• Became the “groundhog whisperer”

• Longer raccoon, opossum, skunk

releases

• Fawn release

• Botfly larvae in bunny

• Albino mockingbird/cardinal

• Hatchling crow

• LOTS of West Nile – vaccinated

raptors and crows

• Lots of ticks/tick related disease – in

staff/interns too!

• I had to personally euthanize many animals for

the first time

• Reasons for euthanasia

• non-native animals (e.g. starlings)

• Minimum weight cutoffs

• Major trauma, inability to survive in wild

• People who bring animals very upset with

euthanasia

• In more of a management position than before –

challenging!

• Living only with the people I worked with in an

isolated setting

• There are new ways of doing old things

• I gained experience with new species

• I gained more independence and

experience directing/managing people

• I realized I don’t ever want to live at my

workplace!

• I made valuable contacts in the

northeast

• I may have potential partners in starting

a future center of my own

Staff/Intern House

House Cat

“Abby”

Lake Near House

House Kittens

House KItten

Fawn

Opossums

Screech Owl Squirrel

Skunk Raccoons

Fawn Black Skimmer

Bald Eagle

Osprey

Deer

Clapper Rail Bald Eagle Cottontail Rabbit

Red Tail Hawk

Release

Red Tail Hawk

Red Tail Hawk

Rat Snake

Eastern Kingbird Eastern

Screech Owl

Chimney Swifts

Squirrel

Botfly Larvae Albino Mockingbird

Hatchling Crow Leucistic Cardinal Barn Owl Oriole Skunk

Baby Turtle

Opossums

Raccoons

the

shoe is

on the

other

foot...

Wood Ducks Great Horned

Owl