About the Wildlife Rescue Internship
For the last 30 years, this Wildlife Rescue centre has been a part of the Greater British Columbia community serving its people and its wildlife through education and rehabilitation.
This is the only facility in British Columbia specialising in the care of mammals and one of only three bear rehabilitation facilities in the province.
The project has helped a huge amount of injured and orphaned animals, saving over 50,000 individuals over 30 years of work!
There were more than 1700 animals admitted to the rehabilitation centre last year and during the baby season, the project gets up to 100 calls a day regarding injured or orphaned animals!
The project is principally volunteer-driven and depends solely on the support of the public to further their success.
In addition to rehabilitation, this project is involved in community-based education programmes at primary levels. They work to educate the public through involvement in civic groups, seniors homes and assist other wildlife management organisations.
Internship Opportunities
Interns are needed all year round as injured and orphaned animals are coming into the project all the time.
The project is very busy from mid-March to September during “baby” season where orphaned animals are brought in to be hand-raised and released back into the wild. Spring, summer and early fall (autumn) bring the majority of the project’s admissions.
Winter is spent caring for the animals that were too small to release in the fall and for the adults that were injured that need to be cared for, over the winter.
Training
Training for interns is provided “on-the-job”. You will learn how to feed, monitor, and clean up after the animals from staff members. Meetings will be held regularly with all of the interns to make sure that everyone is following procedures correctly and thoroughly
You will be working five days a week throughout your stay. In the summer, your day may start at 6:00 AM and end at 11:30 PM (basically your schedule is determined by your babies’ feedings). Note that you will still be feeding your babies on your days off. During the winter, your hours are typically 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
School and senior groups are invited to the project for educational presentations. You will likely be asked to attend, usually to show and talk about an animal. Let the staff know if you have a background in education and wish to be further involved in these presentations.
If you are present when releases are taking place, then you will probably have a chance to go along with a staff member.
You are welcome to help enrich the lives of the animals in your care – to stimulate their behaviour and development in a positive way.
Activities interns will be involved with:
- Animal feeding and water provision
- Animal enrichment activities
- Community engagement sessions e.g. school trip educational talks
- Enclosure care and maintenance
- Animal releases
A Day in the Life of an Intern – (please read if you are applying!)
6 am: During the baby season this will often be your first feed. You may have multiple species to feed all before the morning meeting. Depending on the species you have and their ages, you may be feeding up to 15 times a day!
8:45 am: morning meeting – Everyone should be done breakfast and have fed and changed the potties of any animals in their care. This is where the interns are read the “To-Do List” which will describe what tasks are to be done that workday. It is also a good opportunity for interns and supervisors to discuss any important matters or any events we have coming up!
Morning Clean– The centre has high traffic all day, every day! It takes a whole team to keep the centre clean. After the morning meeting, the interns will share the jobs and clean the entire house top to bottom to ensure it is presentable to the public, as well as comfortable for themselves
Cage Cleaning– often interns attend the centre to assist with cage cleaning, but it is inevitable that you will have to clean a cage or two. You may be cleaning your raccoons, squirrels, beavers, bears or maybe all the above!
Daily jobs– the daily jobs are shared amongst interns to ensure everyone is contributing to keeping the centre running. Jobs include laundry, cooking eggs or chicken, making food plates, organising the closets, sorting the deck, changing boot dips and so on.
Lunch– your lunch will be scheduled so that not everyone is in the kitchen at once. You are allowed a 30minute lunch break, and two 15-minute breaks throughout the day.
Afternoon– More cleaning, the To-Do List, hopefully, a rescue or exam and the project tries to schedule in enrichment and team building as often as they can.
Evening clean– The centre is to be cleaned top to bottom once again. Depending on the season, this may be done in the middle of the day too. After evening clean it is time to give the animals their dinner. Potties are to be changed and some animals may be locked up depending on the weather.