Day 70 - Education

The big 7-0. What am I going to do with myself? These days are still flying by. 26 days left before returning home to Ohio. This is also my 10th week here which means only about 3-4 weeks left.

Today started off different then normal cleaning. I helped the assistant education director load up two birds for a craft show down the street (Rory the Broad-winged Hawk and TJ the American Kestrel). I then helped clean by mopping since the other intern swept and vacuumed already. She also checked bathrooms. So once this was covered we then proceeded to answer phone calls and do tours once 10am rolled around. This basically defines out entire day.

Some interesting stuff this morning was when a man came in that had brought an American Crow a few weeks ago. This crow ended up dying so we sent it in to test for West Nile virus. The tests came back positive so now Oneida county and Vilas county (the county north of us) is positive for West Nile Virus in crows. Typically West Nile affects birds before mammals. Corvids (Blue Jays, Crows, Ravens) are the first bird species to show signs before it travels to other birds. I told you guys these mosquitoes and ticks are horrible here. Now the virus is expressing it. Hopefully it does not spread to people any time soon. If it does, here's something information below about humans and West Nile.

Here's a little blip about West Nile that I pulled from a Wisconsin Division of Public Health source.
"Approximately 80% of people infected with West Nile Virus do not become ill. Most of the remaining 20% of infected people may experience a mild illness that can present with fever, headache, eye pain, muscle aches, joint pain, a rash on the trunk, swollen lymph nodes, nausea and vomiting. Less than 1% of people infected with West Nile virus become severely ill. Symptons of severe illness include extreme muscle weakness, inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), paralysis, and coma. In rare cases the infection may be fatal, particularly in the elderly and people with other medical conditions".
Link to Source: http://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/publications/P4/P42104.pdf

Besides this morning, tours, and phone calls we had a Red Squirrel come in and a baby bird (possibly a House Wren). The Red Squirrel was lethargic but after some hydration he was crawling all over the place so he was moved from a small container to a larger cage with a den box. He can snuggle up in the den box and then roam around when necessary. The baby bird came later in the evening and the odds are not good. Never ever feed a bird bread and milk, especially a baby bird. In fact, never feed any wild animal anything milk based. Just because milk is good for us does not mean it is good for anything else because guess what; cow's milk is horrible for animals. Think about the animal; what would it most likely find in it's natural environment based on the age? Truth is, it's illegal to attempt to rehabilitate any wildlife so save yourself the trouble (and possibly the animal's life) by not feeding it anything. Even too much water can cause something to drowned or inhale the water so maybe offer a small dish and that's it H20 wise. The most frustrating thing ever is an animal dying due to "attempting to help" because sometimes the help makes the condition 100x worse.

Other then these animals coming in and doing education stuff I helped feed the red squirrel that came in, a deer mouse that came in two days ago, and our three baby red squirrels who are slowly but surely getting bigger. They weigh roughly 15-20g now and are starting to grow in some fur. For the most part they are gray skinned but they are growing in some red fur. I will try to take a picture tomorrow unless I forget again. I forgot to take pictures all day since I was so caught up in everything. 

Overall had a pretty good day and contemplating bed early. I am work 7:30am to 6:30pm (roughly) due to the Gem Show! I will explain more tomorrow of course. We will see how things go with that. I am excited for it because I really wanted to work this event.