This past week I started my “Wildlife Rescue Course” hosted by Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. It is an eight week course (one night a week, 2.5h/night).
During the class, we learn identification, handling, and housing of:
- Reptiles (snakes and lizards)
- Birds (lorikeets, raptors, etc)
- Mammals (koalas, kangaroos, sugar gliders, etc)
We Learn hand-rearing, record keeping, policy, legislation, conservation, rehabilitation and release, ethics, and euthanasia.
Now this all sounds pretty in-depth, but it isn’t that meticulous, the class very beginner orientated (the students range from early high school to 50 year old volunteers). It is meant to help encourage wildlife awareness, and offer wildlife (type) careers. Due to the large development and growth of the civilization in the area, human and wildlife interaction is pretty common, so having people in the populace that know how to help/care for injured animals until professional help is contacted is in high demand.
The first night mostly consisted of orientation, talks about legislation, an orientation film on the sanctuary, etc. During the talk, we were visited by a huntsman spider. While not poisonous, their bite can hurt, the are a bit large, oh and they jump. This had our instructor constantly keeping an eye on it as he climbed the drapes next her chair :).
At one point, she disappeared behind a door and then came out with Frogmouth Bird. She went around allowing people to handle the bird as she gave some history and information about the species. I got to hold him for a few minutes and was amazed at how light he was (considering his size).
Before the night wrapped up, we all headed out and into a private habitat cage (only accessible by the night tours). Once inside, we were quickly greeted by two territorial Brush Tailed Possums, a pair of curious and friendly Sugar Gliders one of which jumped onto one of the girls looking for food (it turns out that the night tour feeds all the animals in this area), two more Frogmouth birds, and a pair of Bettongs.
It was a great night, and I look forward to seeing more as the class continues. Next week is reptiles night.