Another white possum!
This is the second one this year! Leucism is an abnormal pigmentation similar to albinism, the main difference being the eye color. She came in with her siblings cold and stinky. They were warmed and fed and antibiotics on board. We are optimistic about their recovery ❤️🩹
Right now, most animals are wrapping up. The last 2-3 weeks, we'd have most babies cleared out, and we had more time to work on misc clinic things. But over the last week or so, now we are in the second squirrel season and went from almost zero squirrels back to 100+, since they will often breed twice a year, so we got our butts kicked this weekend. We also were taking in quite a few bunnies.
Volunteer season will be wrapping up around the end of September when the last of these babies become releasable. As volunteers, most of us are just Apr-Sep, as that is the complete baby boom for everyone.
We do keep a handful of people in the off season. I was tempted to do it last year, but between the 3 rabies shot appointments, my wedding/honeymoon, and I normally take a vacation in December, and I had one planned in January, I just want going to be around for most weekends last year, so I do know too much about what goes on, but it will be mainly adult animals. I'm not sure how much I'd get to interact with them, as volunteers normally get babies almost exclusively, one, because they are cuter and more enticing to get people to help, and two, their wildness hasn't kicked in 100% so they are easier to handle and less physically dangerous to untrained people.
They have been giving me more time with some adults, like granny opossum and an adult Great Horned Owl, since I'm not new anymore and have demonstrated reasonable competence so far, so who knows.
I'm tempted to try it this off season, especially if I ever actually remember to check my rabies titer. I just worry about getting stuck in cleaning and maintenance stuff. I go there to avoid doing that stuff at home! 😉
Binturong was kinda cool, but he was a very old man, and just was curled up sleeping. Feeding the red panda was amazing, I'd wanted to do that for like 15 years, and we fed the lemur too, and he was pleasantly delightful as well. I hadn't expected to do either of those. I didn't get too up close to their owls, but they weren't far away and had some neat stories. The one was born in 1982 and still looks good, all considered.