“In June 2022, I separated from the military, as I wanted to begin pursuing a career in veterinary medicine. While animals have been a lifelong interest of mine, and I have had pets since childhood, I did not have any practical experience in animal medicine. Upon contemplating my desires and personal goals, I found that a career in either wildlife rehabilitation or large animal medicine would be the best fit for me.

“I am extremely interested in wildlife rehabilitation and care. I would love to do this work as a veterinarian, should I get into veterinary school, and I would like to use opportunities like this to further my learning in general. For these reasons, I applied to volunteer at Dane County Humane Society and started in the Wildlife Center in 2022/2023. 

“I found volunteering to be fulfilling; however, once a week felt like not enough for me. I understood that all of the work was important and helpful – whether it was diet preparation, housekeeping, or other side projects – since they lower the staff’s burden and ultimately create a better quality of stay for patients at the Center. I wanted the opportunity to do more at the Wildlife Center, though. I desired more consistent interactions with patients and to be more hands-on with them. I hope that during my internship I am able to learn more about direct care for different animals in each of the specialty areas.”

– Andrew Edwards

“When I saw this internship, I got excited because I could handle and help wild animals, and it gave me an excuse to stay in Madison for the summer. This would be my first experience working with animals in a professional manner, so I knew any opportunity I could get would allow me to learn buckets of useful information. Overall, I hope to gain hands-on skills in order to keep an animal as comfortable as possible. Specifics include: correct handling methods, meal preparation, administering medications, and cleaning cages. The most important thing, if I am planning on going into wildlife for a future career, is to be able to catch slight problems that indicate a possible issue with the animal (e.g. stress, odd behavior, animal anatomy). I also saw this internship as a valuable opportunity to get experience working with wildlife. As a sophomore college student, I wanted to use this to be able to weigh my future options of what sector of wildlife care I want to go into.”

– West Mann

“When I did this internship in the summer of 2021, it was an eye-opening experience. I loved it so much, I thought to myself, ‘This is what I want to do with my life,' multiple times! I loved the community and routine and atmosphere at the center, and I was/am so excited to be back and working with the wonderful folks at the Wildlife Center again! I really hope to continue helping out at DCHS’s Wildlife Center for many years to come!

I am hoping to work towards becoming a wildlife rehabilitator. I am super interested in learning more rehabilitation techniques such as gavaging, wellness checks, body condition check, patient intakes, administering medications without assistance, etc. I also would love to learn the ins and outs of reception, as I had a blast with the basics that I learned. I’d love to also get the routine down of most/all housekeeping tasks and know where items are and become more confident around the center and doing things on my own.”

– Will Smith

“I think the thing that inspired me to apply for this wildlife internship was trying to get more experience in my home state and in a more advanced setting. I have done wildlife rehabilitation before and I knew it was my passion in life, but I worked at a very disjunctive clinic with lots of animals and very few people. Once you got good at one thing, you usually stuck to that thing and did it for most of your internship. I am hoping to learn how to work with a variety of different animals here and learn the best care for each species. I am also excited to learn and work in a more cohesive wildlife rehabilitation clinic and see how DCHSWC operates and performs at such an impressive level.”

– Elisabeth Wyatt