My Education Outreach Externship at the Wildlife Center of Virginia
This summer I got the incredible opportunity to work with a fantastic organization: The Wildlife Center of Virginia. As an education outreach extern, I work with the outreach team to promote the Wildlife Center’s mission of “teaching the world to care about and care for wildlife and the environment”.
That being said, I have a pretty broad job description. Some days I go from handling snakes, to assisting with tours of the facility, to writing updates on educational ambassadors, to even getting a U-Haul to pick up donations from Walmart. Everyday is a new adventure here at the Wildlife Center!
My first assignment was to write a blog post about my first week at the center. If you’d like to read it, you can find it here. I have also written a more recent blog post for them which you can find here.
After that, I continued to observe the Wildlife Center’s amazing outreach coordinators, Chapin and Raina. Together, they trained me to handle our education ambassadors — Malcom (cornsnake), Pignoli (Eastern Screech Owl), Grayson (Broad-winged Hawk), and Wilson (Box Turtle).
On top of these beautiful ambassadors, I am currently training to work with our two Eastern Rat snakes, Albus and Severus! If you want to read more about each of these lovely animals and how they found their home at the Wildlife Center, check it out here!
One of my jobs as an education outreach extern is to assist with education programs all around Virginia. So recently, I helped to represent the Wildlife Center at the Grace Farm Tour this summer along with Raina (outreach coordinator) and Shelly (outreach volunteer). This was one of my favorite programs that I have done thus far due to the informal setting. We set up underneath a tent for an entire day. Throughout the day we rotated through our education ambassadors while people came over to learn more about what the Wildlife Center does. This enabled us to be able talk more directly with the public about wildlife and have engaging discussions.
This happened to be Pogo’s (education opossum) first program! We quickly learned that Pogo always insisted on taking his blanket with him whenever he left his crate! He stole the hearts of everyone who stopped by with his adorable face. This definitely helped in breaking the terrible reputation that opossums have — a job well done for Pogo!
Pignoli and Athena (Barred Owl) were also major hits that day! However, I found an alarming number of people were actually afraid of Malcolm, our corn snake! Many people were afraid that I was holding a venomous snake! After informing everyone that Malcolm was in fact harmless, they still insisted on staying ten feet back from me.
This is just one of the reasons wildlife education is so crucial — corn snakes, as well as many other harmless species of snake, are killed out of fear or misidentification. Often people think that they have encountered a venomous snakes in their yards, such as a copperhead. In fact, even if you encounter a venomous snake, you should just leave it alone. Snakes are far more afraid of you than you are of them!
I have retained an unbelievable amount of information over my five weeks here. I have learned so much about native wildlife, wildlife rehabilitation, public speaking, and writing. All of it has been applicable to my everyday life, especially when it comes to handling turtles! The rule is to always help a turtle cross the street by moving it in the direction it is going. So far, I have helped three turtles cross the street, and I always keep my eye out for critters when I drive!
