My Essential Questions:

• How does treatment differ for different types of animals, wild and domestic, and how do you learn what types of treatment techniques are best?
• How can shadowing a professional veterinarian help me to better understand wildlife rehabilitation and release?
• How can learning the best methods to use when caring for injured/sick wildlife, help me to better care for animals on my farm (chickens, geese, sheep, and wild animals), especially since vets aren’t trained to support long-term health?

Connect to outside sources (article/book/podcast/ted talk/blog/website/etc):

I watched a ted talk on what it really takes to be a veterinarian and I learned a lot about what toll the job takes and why it is such a demanding and difficult career. I had no idea they were so overworked, underpaid, and left to deal with two patients at one at all times (the animal and usually the owner) which juggling so much paperwork and mandatory meetings/classes. The result of this, a career in the veterinary field has the second-highest rate of suicide (right under police officers).  Throughout my senior project, I have focused on the animals and not as much on the people that care for the animals and the industry that helps them provide them with that care, but I’m becoming a lot more interested in that side. There are very few veterinary schools which mean there are not as many veterinarians that can share the workload and the mounting paperwork. There should also be mental health professionals and regular check-ins because in the life of a vet, euthanizing an animal and having to tell the people that have loved and cared for that pet for so many years that there is nothing left they can do, is a regular occurrence. They have to show compassion and understanding while trying to distance themselves from the pain the owners are feeling because they too want to do everything they can to help the injured/sick animal.

Source: https://youtu.be/objP3E625Xo

 

Another question that I’ve been wondering about since the start of my internship at Ravensbeard, was why there has been such a big increase this year of male barred owls, specifically resulting from collisions from cars? This led me to wonder if this had to do with the pandemic somehow or if it is an increasing trend and the numbers have been increasing years prior as well? I found two articles about this topic that were written in 2019, and the other in 2017, and both of them recognize this growing issue among barred owls. The one that’s written in 2019, stated there had been a huge increase in the number of sightings of these owls reported than in years prior, as well as reports of police officers and municipal employees tending to injured owls. The first theory was that it had been a very successful breeding season for barred owls so there were just more around. Another theory is pretty much the opposite, and it states that there has been a sharp decline in the rodent population so barred owls have become more desperate for food and are therefore taking more risks (like hunting during the day), which is leading to more collisions with cars. A lot of the barred owls rescued from these collisions and rehabilitated are young owls no more than a year old so this could also be part of an explanation since they are not as experienced in hunting prey.

 

The other article which was written in 2017, also describes a sharp increase in barred owl injures resulting from collisions in the New England area. The author explains that 95% of rapture injures are caused by humans, so the issue could be something we could prevent by changing our behavior. Barred owls tend to hunt salamanders and rodents in the colder months, and human trash along roadsides attracts those animals which then attracts the owls and makes it much more likely for owls to get hit by cars. This is why it is essential that we don’t litter especially on roads and highways. These two articles have definitely helped me answer parts of my question about this uptick in injured barred owls, and I will keep looking for more to build on my understanding of this issue.

 

Sources: 2019 article: https://www.journalinquirer.com/connecticut_and_region/keep-your-eyes-peeled-barred-owls-sightings-injuries-on-the-rise-in-state/article_a34c6e1a-3c92-11e9-a0b0-db630952c302.html

2017 article: https://www.seacoastonline.com/news/20170131/why-increase-in-barred-owl-injuries