Jobs at the Wildlife Care Clinic offer a unique and unforgettable experience for both the staff and volunteers. With the unusual blend of injured and sick wildlife brought into the clinic almost every day and the offbeat job description, working at the Wildlife Care Clinic can be far from routine.

In addition to animal care, the staff and volunteers of the Wildlife Care Clinic present educational programs to the community.

The programs are provided upon public demand and are sometimes only requested every couple of months, said Heather Reynolds, student staff member and sophomore in animal ecology.

“We will do [the programs] once a month if we are lucky,” she said.

These presentations are typically performed for schools, summer camps, churches, scout groups, the elderly and youth groups, Reynolds said.

The presentation profiles the six permanent residents of the clinic including four owls, a red-tailed hawk and a vulture, she said. The educational program usually educates the group on the animals’ habitat, their daily habits, what they eat and where they may be found.

These programs are a means of providing money for the nonprofit organization, Reynolds said.

Many scout groups and schools “adopt an animal” through monetary donation.

In appreciation for the donation, the clinic will perform a program for them, she said.

For volunteers, the Wildlife Care Clinic provides a special type of education.

“I really like animals and getting to work with these kinds is pretty unique,” said Matt Reed, sophomore in zoology.

Reed spends several hours each week volunteering at the Wildlife Care Clinic.

Like many of the staff’s duties, the volunteers fill most of their time by medicating and feeding the animals and cleaning cages and floors. But the staff and the volunteers also receive first-hand training and hands-on experience in the treatment and care of wildlife.

“Last week I got to euthanize my first animal,” Reed said.

He went on to explain how difficult it was for him to find a vein to inject the needle into at first.

“It took a few tries, but I got it,” Reed said.

The majority of the staff and volunteers at the clinic are students majoring in animal ecology, animal science and genetics, Reynolds said.

She said the clinic receives two regular volunteers from the city of Ames who visit on Saturday mornings to feed and medicate the wildlife.

“The volunteers do a lot of the physical labor,” Reynolds said. “They help out a lot.”

On average, volunteers come into the clinic one or two times each week to help out where they can, Reynolds said.

The clinic has four student staff members who started out as volunteers at the clinic.

“The staff helps to guide and teach the volunteers,” Reynolds said.

Deb Schumaker, student staff member and junior in animal ecology, said experience is a main difference between the staff and the volunteers.

“Some of the volunteers don’t feel comfortable handling some of the hawks,” she said.

Schumaker also pointed out that volunteers are not allowed to handle mammals because of the risk of rabies infection. Staff members are required to obtain rabies shots.

While each staff member works between 10 and 20 hours a week, they are also required to be on call at least one night a week, Reynolds said.

Although they are not called upon a majority of the time, Reynolds explains that when they are, it is usually for out of the ordinary cases.

“One time, Deb [Schumaker] got called at 2 a.m. about a truck full of alligators somebody had found,” Reynolds said.