The Hard Part

My life here is really fascinating. I am feeding moose and moving animals or catching animals often enough that it doesn't really seem worthy of blogging about.  Funny huh?  My day today involved Staples, our bookkeeper, a Board meeting, a couple of moose feedings, planning for our Open House, HR issues, baking cakes (also for our open house - 6 today, about as many yesterday) and a great meeting with some new allies about getting closer to our infrastructure goals. You know, just a typical day. 

Something new, however, is the sense of loss and my inability to make the situation better or to say anything that will make other people feel better.  Death is always difficult, dealing with death at work is something new for me and it isn't easy. Balancing compassion and the emotions I am feeling with strength and practicality is very difficult.  As a staff,  we try to be practical about it, we know it is a fact of life, of wildlife, but the practical and the emotional aren't always in synch. To be frank, our inability to perform miracles is extremely frustrating!

The animals live such great lives at the Preserve, loss is rare. It is, I guess just like humans, a part of birthing. We try not to intervene in the birthing of animals unless the mother is in danger. A baby lost during birth is really, really sad - but not nearly as sad as a baby born and admired for a few days before passing away.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have experienced both. And frankly it sucks. 

Even harder, in some ways, is losing an animal I've been a part of caring for. Last week we received a baby raven who had been pushed out of its nest about 45 feet (sibling rivalry). We checked it out and, aside from a superficial wound, there weren't any obvious injuries. For several days, I was one of a series of people feeding him at least every hour of every day - baby ravens eat OFTEN! Sadly, it turns out, he had internal injuries that we could not have fixed. He had a blood clot around his heart and as he got stronger and healthier, and consequently more active, his heart couldn't handle it and he died.

Don't get the wrong idea, for every sad story there are hundreds of good ones. Despite my sadness for this raven, we are able to save about 90% of all birds brought to us. We've already successfully released a bald eagle and a northern hawk owl this year. Not every baby has survived, but we have 12 so far that have - with more on the way - and a rescue moose and a rescue elk keeping us busy. I think that's it, really. The Preserve is such a magical place to work, there  are so many good news stories, a tiny bit of sadness is that much harder to take.