I saw my first rattlesnake ever today. I almost smooshed it with my car. It is probably a good thing that I know what they look like now. When I was five, my family and I camped just a few feet from a rattlesnake pit in the Badlands. Of course, we arrived at night and didn’t realize this until morning. Oops. Let’s hope I don’t make the same mistake sometime.

On Saturday morning, I got to cover my first release - a bobcat release. Her name is Sophie and she had been at Best Friends since she was just an itty bitty baby. She was trapped at the bottom of a slot canyon when she was just a few pounds and was rescued by canyoneers last summer. She’s spent her whole life since then here in captivity, but remained completely wild. She has been kept away from humans to ensure that she stays afraid of them. She ate by hunting small animals that wandered into her pen, and was occasionally tossed a live meal to hunt if none wandered into her pen on their own.

She could have been released last fall, but she would have had a much harder time adapting to being on her own at that time of year. Now was a better release time, because of the bajillion wild bunnies out here that are procreating. There is a never-ending supply of slow, easy-to-catch baby bunnies for her to feast on. Not so good for the bunnies, but good for her. It will give her time to become a better hunter in time for winter, when food is harder to come by.

We drove out to the White Cliffs on Saturday and let her go. It’s incredible how much natural instinct they have. This bobcat that has lived its whole life in captivity, will be just fine in the wild. Bobcats are solitary animals, so they don’t need to befriend any others. They just go out and eat, sleep, and live.

I wish I had better photos to show for the release, but that cat took off so fast, I only got two frames fired off before she was gone, gone, gone. I couldn’t be in front of her because she could attack if she felt I was in the way of where she wanted to go. But sub-par photo aside, it was an incredible experience, one I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

You heard right. While giving them their much-adored belly rubs, to their enjoyment I also rubbed their armpits… only to later find out those are actually their breasts. Yes, I rubbed manatee boobs.

After taking a forty-minute boat ride in 50-degree weather, I hopped in the river (wearing a wetsuit of course), and proceeded to swim over to a spring. The water was a little murky from the spring and a little pessimism began to wash over me. “I’m not going to see one,” I thought to myself. And after a few seconds of doubt, I am side-swiped by one of these enormous creatures.

At times I had six of them on me at once, all the while I could see many more sleeping just a few feet away. A mother and calf came to play with me, and I watched the baby nurse. There were smooth manatees, algae-covered manatees, and barnacle-covered manatees… but no matter their texture, sadly they all had scars left behind from boats.

After an hour and a half, I started to get too cold and had to say goodbye to the manatees and hello to the hot chocolate. I swam back to the boat and to my life on the other side of the water line.

More photos….

Up until now, my favorite department at work was the bird department. You’d think that it’d be the cat department, but surprisingly (even to me), it was always the bird department. They are just so beautiful and hilariously full of life. Any department that you can have a dance party with the animals is certainly going to be at the top of my lists. But as of today, my favorite department just might be wildlife rehabilitation. However, I’m fairly certain that my favorite department will change every few days and that every department will at some point be my considered my favorite. But for now, it’s wildlife rehab.

This is Elfin. He is so cute, I almost have a heart attack every time I see him. He looks like a little chipmunk, but he’s a white-tailed antelope squirrel. He’s a permanent resident at Best Friends, having arrived about seven years ago with some siblings. The siblings were all released back into the wild, but poor Elfin had too much neurological damage from malnutrition to be released… so he’s been livin’ the good life in the wildlife rehab office, spoiled rotten with chin rubbings and other lovefests.

This is a screech owl that came in last week. His eye is like that because of severe head trauma. If he heals properly, his eye should go back to normal (or close to it), but it is still too early to tell what the outcome will be.

This is Lancelot. He is a box turtle that was found in a parking lot a few months ago. They aren’t native to here, so it’s likely that he was someone’s pet who either escaped from someone’s yard, or more likely was released when the pet turtle was more than the owner bargained for. He’s up for adoption and looking for a family that doesn’t mind his turtley stink.

And this red-tailed hawk came in the other day with a broken wing... hence the lovely pink cast.

Filed under: best friends, wildlife

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