Living Coast Discovery Center & Wild Wonders

This week I began volunteering/ interning at two new wildlife sanctuaries in San Diego.

The first of the two is Living Coast Discovery Center. This is where I will be interning two full days per week. While the center houses native Californian aquatic and bird species, I will mostly be focusing my time in the bird area, working with various birds of prey. My daily routine isn't quite down yet, but it seems that I will begin the day by feeding out AM diets (rats, mice, chicks, or fish depending on the bird). During this time I will do a head count, making sure all of them look healthy and happy. I will also be cleaning each individual enclosure at this time, spraying down and scrubbing the perches and refilling water bowls. After this I will prepare the diets for the next day. First you prepare the birds of prey diets, weighing out in grams how much rats, mice, or chicks they should receive and then placing each one in it's individual labelled container. This means its super important to learn all of their names quick! After I'm done with them I will do the same for the shorebird diet, however it's different in that a lot of the shorebirds are in one large enclosure and therefore I make one large bowl for them rather than separating out for each individual bird.

Once I'm done with diets I will finish doing small task cleaning until about 1:30/2 PM when I begin feeding out the afternoon diets. During this time I will do another visual check of the birds, making sure nothing has changed since I was there earlier in the day. At 2:30 there is an eagle feed/talk, where one of the staff and I will talk with the public about the two eagles we have within our care. Once we are done with the talk we go into their enclosures and feed them their PM diet so the public can watch them. After all this, we clean up for the day. If there is extra time after cleaning we can socialize the birds, which is sitting near or in their enclosure so they get used to your presence and will eventually trust you enough to handle them.

This week had extra excitement because one of our burrowing owls had droopy wings, which is not normal. Therefore we had to bring him within the main building to observe throughout the day. At the end the keepers decided that he had new feathers growing it, since he had just molted, and they must be uncomfortable. However, he will be closely observed in the upcoming days to ensure that is the reason.



I will also be spending one morning a week about an hour north at Wild Wonders. The animals housed here are mostly wildlife that have been hurt or surrendered by owners who thought they could keep them as pets, but then realized that it is not possible to keep wild animals the same way you would a domesticated. This week was my first week so I mostly just shadowed, which consisted of standing outside each enclosure and watching what the more experienced volunteers did. I will have more to report on this place as I get to do more things! I am excited about the opportunities it will present though!