Volunteers at the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW) on Sanibel Island spend their days covered in feathers and turtle dust, caring for a variety of wild animals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Barb Lasky, a dedicated CROW volunteer, shared her passion for helping animals.<\/p>\n
“Oh, man, that’s a tough question, because they don’t talk back,” said Lasky when asked why she loves animals so much.<\/p>\n
She explained that her work is fun and fulfilling because animals often suffer injuries caused by people.<\/p>\n
“This is fun, and I love animals, and they don’t have anybody else to help them out, and people mostly cause their injuries,” said Lasky.<\/p>\n
Lasky spends her days walking gopher tortoises, many of which have been hit by cars, to ensure they receive exercise and care.<\/p>\n
“These guys are gopher tortoises and have probably been hit by a car. So since I volunteer, I don’t know their whole story. I walk them once a week, and they get outside for about an hour a day to get some exercise,” said Lasky.<\/p>\n
She finds the work relaxing and rewarding.<\/p>\n
“It’s just, it’s relaxing. And, yeah, you feel like you’re doing good,” she said.<\/p>\n
While volunteers like Lasky handle day-to-day care, medical decisions are left to the veterinarians, who often have their hands complete with a variety of patients, from hawks to pelicans.<\/p>\n
“These are wild animals, and so they have their own unique behaviors and things like that. And again, unlike with human medicine, we can’t ask them what their problems are, so we have to figure it out,” said Rodney Schnellbacher, a senior vet at CROW.<\/p>\n
The medical team performs X-rays, bloodwork, and other procedures to diagnose and treat the animals.<\/p>\n
“We usually have about 30-ish patients, you know, just in the hospital. And then we have a large rehab staff,” said Schnellbacher. “We need to get them ready to be in the wild, and so they make sure that they’re exercised and taken care of until that point as well.”<\/p>\n
CROW has taken in more than 4,700 animals this year and is raising money for Giving Tuesday to purchase new equipment, such as oxygen tanks.<\/p>\n
Lasky emphasized the importance of daily care, noting that the need for help never stops.<\/p>\n
“The animals don’t stop coming in, and they don’t, you know, go away on Christmas or a holiday, right? So you gotta every day. It’s important,” said Lasky.<\/p>\n
The dedicated efforts of CROW volunteers and veterinarians ensure that the wild animals on Sanibel Island receive the care they need to return to their natural habitats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Volunteers at the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW) on Sanibel Island spend their days covered in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,3837,325],"class_list":["post-69170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-collaborator_gen_stories","tag-lee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}