Brittany’s Week 4

Cape Wildlife Center

It was really cool this week, Kate arranged for the interns to take a field trip to the Cape Wildlife Center in Barnstable. The facility is AMAZING! They have so much land and so many animals there. Currently they have about 150 patients at the Wildlife Center. When we first got to the facility we watched a short video made by the staff that was very informative and gave useful information about the animals found on Cape Cod that they treat at their facility. Then we got the grand tour. The building used to be a spa, so all of the floors are marble and there were a ton of mirrors in the examining room. They have a lot of different sections or wings with animals. One of my favorites was the nursery. There were so many cute baby animals there 🙂 We saw a baby seagull, possums, squirrels, bunnies, and mice. then they took us where they keep the birds and we saw Mallard ducklings and a Canada Goose gosling. He was huge compared to the other ducklings it was adorable! We also got to see Eastern Box turtles that were being rehabilitated after being struck by a lawn mower. The staff at the CWC put a very interesting and creative contraption on the female’s shell to help close her shell and help her heal. It was almost like stitches for her shell (her air sacs were exposed). Then we saw one of the coolest things, a Fisher Cat. They are adorable when they are little but they are still vicious wild animals. And that ended our tour, we just now have to give the Cape Wildlife Interns a tour of our facility after they gave us an amazing tour of theirs.

Posted by Brittany W.
Brittany is a Summer, 2011 Intern at the National Marine Life Center.