Central Alberta’s injured hawks and white-tailed deer will get some additional TLC this month from students from around the globe.
The Medicine Wildlife Centre is expecting its first trio of international volunteers over the Easter long weekend. These young people, who are taking a “gap year” between high school and university, hail from Germany and Switzerland.
But more students — the centre’s CEO Carol Kelly anticipates a total of 15 to come at intervals until November — are expected from all over Europe, and maybe as far as Australia and New Zealand.
The Spruce View-area wildlife centre has a tradition of accommodating international helpers. Kelly applies through a Victoria, B.C.-based organization that connects the centre with those who are interested in “volunteer tourism.”
With only three full-time staffers and five part-timers or contacted workers, she said the centre gets very busy with injured or orphaned wildlife during the spring and summer months. So many more young animals are born and adults come out of hibernation or return from migration, that Kelly doesn’t know how they could manage without the extra help.
Usually, the foreign students (the oldest one who’s volunteered was 36 years) will incorporate an unpaid “apprenticeship” at the wildlife rehabilitation centre into their travels across Canada and beyond, said Kelly. “They want to gain some life experience before starting university… which I think is a great idea!”
Kelly has worked with helpers with various grasps of English. She recalled one German girl was very self-conscious — until staffers assured her she was more understandable than a volunteer from London, who talked too fast in Cockney slang.
The students come with different long-term career goals. There was even one working on her PhD in physics, said Kelly, who noted the only criteria is that they be interested in learning about the care of wildlife, and are dedicated.
The volunteers pay for their own food and travel costs, but live for free during their two-to-three-month stint in portable accommodations on centre grounds. They usually work out very well; “I’ve only had to ‘fire’ a couple of them because they weren’t serious,” said Kelly.
Their time at the centre “can be a life-changing experience.”
Kelly recalls one young woman gained the confidence to break up with her abusive boyfriend. “She married the nicest guy after that! We met him when she came back for a visit…”
This year’s helpers will see a new wildlife hospital going up. The project will be completed this spring if the centre lands another $445,000 grant.
Kelly has her fingers crossed. She next plans to fundraise for a new $2.5 million interpretive centre for educational visitors and school groups.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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