018 | Loons, Ducks and Nighthawks Oh My! -Interview with Wildlife Rehabber Rachel

We have an absolutely amazing interview for you all today! My friend Rachel is a wildlife rehabilitator, waterfowl rescuer, and all around super cool human being. Enjoy hearing her successes, and glean some amazing knowledge from her experiences.

Be sure to follow us on Instagram @RescueRebelsPod and send an email of what you'd like to hear next at RescueRebelsPod@Gmail.com

And thank you again to Rachel for taking time to be with us.

Special Thanks to Nick Panek for music sourced through Pixabay.Com

This episode is intended to be for educational purposes and personal opinions only. The content herein does not reflect on organizations mentioned within the episode.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey guys, it's Elle, and it's Abby, and welcome to Rescue Rebels. We have a super fun episode coming to you guys today. And that is an interview with wildlife rehabilitator and domestic duck rescuer Rachel. Quack, quack. I don't know. It's gonna be a lot of fun. We haven't officially gotten to do an interview yet due to a lot of issues with schedules lining up and things like that with a lot of the people that we invited originally to interview on our podcast. So we're really thankful to Rachel and super excited to be able to get into that. Yeah. Excited to dive deep into it and know what it's all about. Yeah, and you guys will get to hear firsthand experiences from a rescuer herself who does wildlife and domestic duck and how those intersect.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Because there's a lot of ways that domestic duck problems and rescue can actually affect wildlife. Interesting. So we're gonna de dive deep into that. But you guys aren't gonna be able to really hear from Abby because her mic is going to be donated to Rachel in order for us to interview her. Yes. So from this point on, Abby's going dark, but she will be here and get to experience it just like the rest of you. In the shadows. In the shadows. All right. So tune in, have fun, and thanks so much to Rachel for being on the podcast today. Thank you. All right. I'm super excited to have my friend Rachel here with me today. Rachel is a marvelous advocate for animals, particularly waterfowl. She works with a very prominent area wildlife rescue. And yeah, thank you so much for coming on the show today, Rachel. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So we were talking before you came out here that you are actually getting ready to go out on a rescue right after as soon as this podcast is over. Yeah. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yes. I was contacted by a lady who saw a pecan duck out in a retaining pond that has a plastic ring around its neck.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

Yeah, like the pop bottle.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

The pop. Yeah, it's hard to say until we get hands on her, but it's definitely around the base of her neck and around her crop. So we know it's got to be interfering with her eating.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Yeah. And so for those that don't know, a crop is a part of a bird's digestive system. It is a sack here at the sanctuary, we affectionately call it the uniboob, that stores food before it enters the rest of the digestive system. And birds will actually pick up rocks and grit as they eat, which helps pulverize that food because they can't chew like you and I can. And what that crop does is it kind of pulverizes that food before it passes into the rest of the digestive system. So if that is interfering with that digestive system, this duck is gonna starve to death.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

And so it's very imperative that you know you guys are able to get her. And I'm sad that I'm not able to go, but I have a pig rescue that I'm going to after this today.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

I know it's always something.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

And it was a goose earlier in the week, and now it's, you know, a duck. And so her boyfriend's there as well. And um, we're going to be taking both of them.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

They had been put in a garage, and the people thought they could raise ducklings in a garage and finally got to the point where they realized duck poop really stinks. Yeah. And so then they thought, oh, we could just put them out in the retention pond in our community. And they don't have, you know, food like they should have for their diet, and they have open water, that's about it. And uh, so they're not safe from predators. And so we are going to be taking them both and relocating them to a farm.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

That's good. That's good. And for a lot of people that maybe don't understand exactly why a domestic duck needs rescued. Do we want to spell that out for them a little bit before we get into our regular interview questions? Because there's a big difference between wild ducks and domestic ducks.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Absolutely. And I feel like people in their mind think it's an okay thing that if they can't keep ducks anymore, that they can just put them in a body of water and they will be fine.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Yeah, that whole wild rewildization theory that has been debunked a million times over, it's not a thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Yeah. Most times these ducks are non-flighted, meaning, you know, they can't just fly away, they can't find a new location and can't find food somewhere else. They are stuck permanently where they're at, wherever they could walk to, possibly. So people that, you know, bring them food once they're there that kind of take it, you know, on themselves, oh, they look hungry, or they're coming up to me because they were once pets.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Those ducks, uh especially in Ohio weather, they have the issue of having the water freeze over. So then not only do they have nothing to drink, they have nothing to eat, and they can't protect themselves from predators.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Yeah. And a lot of people don't recognize that they've been genetically bred specifically to bear more meat.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Because they're meat birds. And so the farming industry has selectively bred through genetic modification for these birds to be bigger. And because they're bigger, they can't fly. Yes. And they're heavy and they require more food to make metabolic heat. And then a lot of them, and I and I'm not saying that they're dumb, but they they've not been raised in the wild and they don't understand that the water does freeze. We've actually came out to rescues where birds have been frozen to the lake. Correct. Or the pond or the creek because they've never been in that environment. And nine times out of 10, they were not raised by mothers to teach them.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

And yeah, we did a case out in central Ohio, 17, it was like that. It was a different case. There's so many cases, it's just like it all blends together. But there were 27 ducks out on a pond, and one had actually frozen to the pond. And luckily, rescuers got to said duck in time and were able to detaw the duck and everything. And it turned out fantastically, they were able to rescue the animal, and the animal was fine. But yeah, that was stressful.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

It was stressful. Very much so. And it's also a really big problem when it does freeze and they're trapped in the middle of the ice. And it's unsafe for us rescuers to go out and save them as well. And in that circumstance, we're still working on tools such as drones and things like that to get them to move and walk off so that we can help them and rescue them. So it's it's a big problem if they do because they're scared.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

It makes it unsafe for rescuers.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Yeah, it reminds me of the situation when the dog was stuck out on the river. Do you remember seeing that on the news? You know, we're trying to get people to go out and get this dog that was stuck out on the river on the ice and it was too thin for rescuers to go out, and they they just kept trying to lure the dog in. And it's like people are so angry and they're like, why doesn't anybody go get this dog? And it's like, hey, if a rescuer goes out there and does die, then that's X amount of lives they won't be able to save because the bill ends with them.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:19

And so we do have to take care of ourselves because if we die rescuing that one, then there are hundreds of others that will not receive the life-saving care that we give. And that's hard for a lot of people, but they don't have that foresight.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

To really like look out and realize, you know, like, hey, I can't risk my life to do this because I've got others counting on me down the line and at home. Right.

unknown 8:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

We have families. We're just doing this to try to save them. Yeah, but sleep night.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah. I always say we do this just so that we can sleep all night. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Oh my gosh. So yeah, I've actually got a set of questions here. And we may uh jump back and forth to this rescue. I want it to be unfiltered. Okay. I want you to bear your heart and I want you to let people know how you feel about this because that really is what we are about here with rescue is rebellion or rescue rebels, is that we want people to understand that there's a whole subset of people that believe there is a better way to do things. And if we don't talk about it, respectfully, of course, but if we don't talk about it, then we're never gonna get down to the point of it all that the way we've been doing things for the last 50, 100 years is outdated in practice. So obviously, your love for animals is so large that you decided to incorporate that into your everyday life.

unknown 9:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

But what is your actual job title and what do you do every day for work? You don't have to talk, you don't have to say the actual organization name, but like what is your actual title? And then just tell us a little bit about what you do every day for the animals.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

That's so funny because I don't even have a true actual title because I've gone from one thing to another to another. Yeah. I definitely do phones. I love to do the hotline for the animals. Yeah. And at that point, be able to get a plan in place for how that animal can be best saved.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Also, I raise and foster all the orphan baby birds for the area. Yeah. So that uh is what I end up doing during the nice months.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

And that way it leaves the bad, crappy months for the rescues of the ones that have been, you know, thrown away outside. Okay. So and and then I also help with bird banding and research of migratory species of birds as well.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

That's amazing. So actually, I almost called your particular organization the other day because we have a bald eagle that has been hanging out and allowing people to approach them, which is not good. And however, when you get about four feet off, he does fly away. And so I've been trying to get close enough to kind of scope out a little bit more information, but I lost him yesterday, right as I was pulling out the phone to call you guys, and I haven't spotted him since. So until I get eyes on him again, you know, but I'll give you guys a call and at least let you guys know the area that he's hanging out in. But things got super crazy today, and I ended up with this pig, and then I got to get another animal to the vet. So it was like, bald eagle, ball, duck, pig, what? I don't know where I am. I'm just one person. And it just was like, as soon as it entered the brain case, it exited. And I was like, oh, but now you're here. So you'll probably hear that through the grapevine at some point.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Yes, absolutely, because that's very uncommon. It is very uncommon to approach a bald eagle. Possibly, we have had calls where people have been photographing bald eagles very up close and personal. And that particular bald eagle had no problem sitting on his lunch at a major intersection, letting people watch it.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

That was the problem, is there was, and I did, I at least moved the carcass out of the middle of the road, but there was a possum, and the bald eagle was eating the possum, and people were out of their car walking up. And I just come up to the intersection, and I I kind of stopped and I watched for a second, and then he took off into one tree, and then I got out and I walked up under the tree, and he's like looking down at me, and I'm like, What are you doing? And then he just was like, Okay, goodbye. And I was like, But we'll see. We'll see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

In that situation, obviously moving the carcasses so these beautiful animals aren't hit because they will absolutely take advantage of road kill.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Yes, 100%. Yep. And I did check the pouch for babies. There was no pouch.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Oh, thank you. It is baby season.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Yeah, so do that, guys. If you're listening, if you do see a dead opossum on the side of the road, sometimes if they've been hit within the last 10, 12, sometimes 24, the babies may still be viable. So stop and check your little opossum babies because they're North America's only marsupial.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

They are, and they definitely need to be removed from a dead mom's tea immediately, as soon as they are from.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Yeah, so always check those. You might look a little crazy, but who cares? Because if you get to transport some babies to a wildlife rehab, or they're gonna sing your praises for forever. So all right. So can you think of any experience that you could tell me and our listeners that made you realize you wanted to work with animals? Was there any one thing in your life that made you say, man, I really want to do this?

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Well, since there's so many different things that I do, bird-related, I know the first time I saw the process of catching the migratory birds and putting the bands on them and getting to see that when they were recaught, they could tell where they came from, where they went to, and the study and education of birds. That's how I got involved in that aspect. Seeing the birds in my yard and their behaviors is what triggered me to just see how incredibly amazing they are. I had a little nest box of house friends, and I noticed that the babies were crying and crying for hours and I did not see a mom. And so after multiple hours of them crying without a mom present, I got in touch with the organization that I'm now with and got those babies to them because I was aware that they were without a mother at that point. Obviously, nobody wants to take babies away from a mother, and it's always the best chance they have at survival. But also, if you are able to pay attention and to check on little ones, follow due process to be crying and there's no mother present for several hours, then it's pretty clear that the mom is no longer around. And obviously, different animals, different species, you know, we wait different amounts of time, but that really was the first time, you know, interacting with orphaned baby birds, and it it definitely sealed the deal for me. Yeah. I wanted to. It's always the baby animals, man. I get it. I get it. Yeah, they're the cutest and the most needy. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

So can you talk a little bit about the frustrations of like when people don't follow the professional advice and what that can actually do, what harm it can do? Because for those that are uneducated, you know, obviously we as rehabbers and rescuers, we've been building upon our science of how to do it for years and years and years. We know what works, we know what doesn't work. And when people think that they know better and they try to get in there and do it themselves, and you know, we're not condemning anybody, obviously. If you've accidentally made a mistake in the past, we we learn from that, right? And we do better next time. But can you just tell us a little bit about that protocol and like just the harms it can cause when people try to do it their own way?

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Yeah, recently I took in to foster baby bunnies, and two of them were very thin, and it was noted that the person that found them did not either know the protocols of not feeding the baby bunnies or trying to give them what Google tells them. Yes, Google says to change. Mix an egg with flour and no, don't do that.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Don't do that. No.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

So unfortunately, these babies ended up with severe bloating and severe diarrhea. And unfortunately, they did not survive.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Even though we flush the systems with pediolite, do everything we can to, you know, try to redo what was done. Yeah, we can't undo that process. Their guts are so sensitive, especially when they're super young and they don't have their moms. Um honestly, their poop is what they need in order to have help. We have a lot of poop talk here on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

I don't know how many episodes you've listened to, but we always talk about poop.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Moms are just the most important, you know. And so, yeah, when you're an orphan and you don't have them trying, you know, as a rehab or two, then do what you can the right way in order to, you know, be as close or similar to what the mom would do for them. So we buy specialized formula, we tube them, and that's another thing people don't realize. But obviously, following by what we say, you know, just keeping them warm is huge, protects their organs until we can get them and get them the proper diet.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Um, even trying to feed them and possibly bottle feeding and aspirating this precious baby bunny is gonna bring you to tears. So don't do it, and everybody will be happier.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

All the professionals get the tips, wait until they respond, wait until they respond. And don't do anything except keep them in a nice warm box until they respond.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

They're honestly safer being just kept warm than they are being given the stuff off Google in the way that you think might be best to feed them. I'm not sure how the average person seems to feed these baby bunnies.

SPEAKER_02 18:51

But uh, again, we're gonna continue with the difficulties portion, but it's gonna get better from here, I promise. So, can you tell us three difficulties that you face in wildlife rehabilitation? This can be personally, this can be something that happened recently. Like for sanctuary work, my biggest thing is you know, the day we gotta say goodbye because we work with these animals every day. They live with us for the duration of their life, and then you know, we do have to say goodbye. And so it's like working with your family members every day and then, you know, losing them. So, whatever that looks like for you, just just name off three for us and let us know so that people can look at you as a human instead of just a person on the other side of the phone that picks up and you know gives them tips. What what makes your job difficult?

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Definitely the loss we want, and I want to say I have a hundred percent, you know, saving rescuing record, but we don't know where those babies came from, how long they were cold, which ruins organs. So even if they start making a rebound and I start getting hopeful, I try not to get my hopes up because if that permanent, you know, organ damage has happened, even if I'm doing everything correct after that, it may already have been too late. And so I certain losses I take really hard, you know, depending on the animal and what all I've had to do to try to bring it back from the situation that it was in. I definitely hear you when you're talking about the animals that you know at the sanctuary.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

You guys have education animals that are very similar. I'm gonna take your mic just a bit.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

And especially possums, as we were talking about earlier, yeah, they are such beloved creatures and they only live three years. Yeah. Three and a half is what they we get, you know, raising them on the proper diet, the unreleasable ones. So I tell you, with everything we've done, I've already been through four ones on. And just having them from the time they were little, we knew they were non-releasable with eye issues and things like that. Having them lick my hands and mark me and say that they're you know, I'm theirs, and just having that relationship with them as as we work with them, and then to then lose them after only three and a half years is is heart wrenching. Oh, for sure. So that's a really tough one. I wanted one more example. Yeah, anyway. Well, when it comes to doing the rescues, we rescued about seven ducks from a park where they were dumped. One of the ducks I ended up taking with me. It was dumped because someone didn't raise it properly and it had really A really bad foot infection or bubble foot.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

And so I'm doing everything I can. You know, it's really improving. Obviously, I'm getting extremely attached to this stuff because I wanted to make sure he was in the best care that, you know, so he had antibiotics, everything you know, he was supposed to have done. And even being at a protective farm, you know, occasionally predators get in and he was taken because he was so slow. I mean, he had to be carried in at night still. He was so his feet were actually crossed because of the environment he was raised in. He couldn't stand properly, walk properly, and then he had a terrible foot infection on top of it. And so between all those things against him, even though he was really recovering, he had loving owners on a farm that were doing everything they could to protect him, he was very vulnerable. And he unfortunately was picked off when there was the coyote run during the hunting time.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

And all right. So can you tell us three joys that you've had in wildlife rehabilitation?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Oh my goodness. It's such a joy to see the birds that I've raised that I've been able to see then be returned to the wild. And they are nighttime hunters for insects. And so we sat her down, they set her down in the woods. I didn't go because of the weather. It was not great. But they were able to videotape the entire thing. And she sat on the log and looked around, got her environment down, and as soon as it got dark and the other ones started calling, she shot straight out of the forest and was right up with them and just knew exactly what to do. That's amazing. And I was literally in tears. It was so incredible because it's so gratifying. It it's they're very time consuming. Yeah. And so it was a lot of work and it was so worthwhile.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

The smile on your face says it all. The smile on your face says it all.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Well, and then last year, one of the greatest things ever was I was doing phones and I get a call that there's a loon down. Well, we only get loons in our area when they are flying through. They maybe stop by for a day or two. We're not fortunate to be in an area where they breed. So it's a very brief stop. But if a loon lands on the ground, they are landlocked and they are grounded. They are a very heavy bird with short wings. So they need an extended long body of water in order to take off. So all they do is just pull themselves across. In this situation, it was a stony road. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I immediately called, got approval. This was up in the nearby state to go across the border state line. Oh, that's good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

And people don't realize you need to go through the government to do that. Because you can you can pass transmissible diseases amongst wildlife. So we never want to cross state lines unless we have permission and we have the proper paperwork to do that.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

Yes. And in this situation, also I had I made sure I had the proper PPE on as well. Yeah, for sure. Because it it's waterfowl, and with the whole avian influenza thing, that's been a huge.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

And we're gonna do an episode on that too. So just wait for that, guys.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

But I went up and I was able to grab this beautiful loon off the ground. And then I looked and found the closest big body of water that the loon could take off from because I knew that it was flying up into Canada for its breeding grounds, and it needed to get where it could take back off to the skies. So I drove to the closest uh body of water. Little did I know when I went to enter this loon into this body of water that either its best friend or its mate was waiting in that body of water.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

That's a miracle.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

It was literally the next closest body of water.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

I really do think it in the end, it was probably its mate. So it did the loon call right in my hands. I could feel it bellow through its body into my hands as I released it into the water. Then the other one called. And as soon as they met each other in the water, they did a dancing thing around one another. I was in tears.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

You're like, what a gift!

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Just to rescue this loom, but then to reunite it with one that it loved. It was just absolutely incredible. That's amazing. And so um, yeah, it's there's so many joys. Obviously, you know, there's always the sad things, but so many joys. We had these three male ruin ducks that unfortunately people tend to dump them once they realize that they're males. Yep. So there were three males and they were dumped together. And so immediately we saw the three, and I was like, the three amigos. Yeah, there you go. So these buddies were so incredibly attached to one another, and so we knew that they needed to be, and we were able to capture them because unfortunately, they were not friendly to where they made it easy on us. They were they're skittish around people, yeah. They were able to be caught all together, good, and they live all together on a local farm and they are just living the dream. They have even been introduced some to some girls this spring, so they are having chances to be the men the males they wanted to be, but still, you know, have each other. So yeah, I love that a great success story.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

So awesome. So obviously, we've talked a little bit about losing animals, you know, that it's not a hundred percent success rate for every rescue. And so do you feel like you experience compassion fatigue? And if you do, do you have tips that you use to alleviate it for any other people that might be listening? And if the answer's no, that's fine too.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

At times, if there's a certain loss, like if I've really invested my heart and soul, and it's taken me extra time. I know when we lost when I lost the the jumbo pecan that I had worked so hard to save, it it really broke my heart. I had time, thankfully, in between rescues and other animal related things to just think about all the wins.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

You know, think about all the success stories. Go visit, you know, all the animals that we do have that have been able to be saved. Um back through the pictures of, you know, the successes really helps. Or also just, you know, sometimes talking to other rehabbers and hearing, you know, their stories is helpful for, you know, dealing with, you know, the losses because a lot of people can't understand if they don't do it.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

And it's a real thing when, you know, I I give them heart and soul, you know, I always say blood, sweat, and tears, but it's like literally, I mean, usually it's not blood, but yeah, you know, it definitely, you know, when you're an empath and you're a compassionate person, it can get overwhelming. Yeah. Definitely in those time periods.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

Yeah. So for me, I make sure that I prioritize at least one day a month to just spoil the the shit out of myself. Um, and that's what I do. And it it works relatively well. I probably need more than that, but that's what my current timeline can afford. So, and that's how I work, you know, to hopefully avoid compassion fatigue and burnout. So we've got two more left that I really want to touch on today and kind of want to talk a little bit about the intersection between wildlife rescue and domestic waterfowl rescue. Because for those that don't know, that don't work in this industry, they don't understand that domestic dump ducks can affect the local wildlife due to competition, infectious disease, et cetera, et cetera. So, do you want to talk a little bit about that? You can take any one point and elaborate. It doesn't really matter. But just give us an idea of why the issue of people dumping ducks at ponds can actually affect the animals that are actually supposed to be there.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Yeah, and I think a good story to go along with that was what happened at the local hospital.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

They had, you know, put in two ponds.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

And so because people feel that they can just put waterfowl that they don't want anymore in bodies of water, people continued to do it for probably tens of years. And it got to be such a problem because all of these domestics and or maybe the wilds that were stopping by it would happen during breeding season. Yeah. And they were all mixed breeding, they were making hybrid ducks of all different kinds of species. And then obviously, right now with you know, avian influenza, but then you know, there's other illnesses, it can just be become such a problem. It became such a problem at this hospital that they had to go in and collect all the dump ducks because they were multiplying at such a rapid speed because of between them and the wilds visiting during breeding season, they were, I mean, having babies. Yeah, just killing biodiversity.

SPEAKER_03 33:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Until there were 50 something, you know, they thought it was beautiful to have these ponds where the native wildlife could come visit and people could see the geese and swam.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

And they're flying over, like, I'm not going to that hotel. That's a two-star down there.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

It's already down there.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:06

Right. Well, another thing too, I've heard is that they absolutely obliterate like frogs and other keystones, keystone species, because they're eating them or destroying their habitat, which then just kills biodiversity.

SPEAKER_00 34:20

They were pets, yeah, and now they're not. And now they're not being fed. Yeah. So they're going to eat what they can get out of the pond.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Which just so happens to be the frogs and the fish and the snails and the bugs and right.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

It affects everything.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

Yep, web together. So if that starts to get thrown out of alignment with other species, it can cause a real problem.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Thank you for sharing that story. So if you could give one piece of advice for someone who wants to get into wildlife rescue, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 34:54

There's definitely a need for it. Uh, but rescues, I'm always saying, are just too few and far between.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:04

A lot of people, friends of mine and things, have told me that they couldn't do it because of the loss. And it's it's not for everyone. Yeah. You have to be able to have a positive mindset and outlook and to count every single win.

SPEAKER_02 35:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

That there is. And sometimes you know that you're doing something good.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Yeah. And sometimes those wins look a little different for us. Like some people think, oh, because we had to euthanize this animal, that's not a win. Well, sometimes we have to look at it and say, well, it's a win because that animal's not out there suffering on the side of the road for an extra two days. And some people can't take that as a win. And sometimes you have to, because that might be the only win you get that week.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

Right. Or I mean, it's sad when there's a local park that, for instance, I know the loon stop on their way up and they called and they had a male mallard, and he was symptomatic with baby and influenza. Yeah. Well, if we don't, there's no cure right now. Yeah. So if we don't get that duck out of there and euthanize him, A, because he's suffering.

SPEAKER_02 36:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

But B, it's so highly contagious. We're putting so many other lives at risk.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

And those lives are gonna take that up to the breeding grounds, which is then just, oh, I can't even imagine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

No.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

I love that. So celebrating the wins, even when they seem like they're not maybe really a total win. That's really great advice. I love that. Well, this has been fun. Thank you so much for coming, Rachel.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

It's easy to talk about animals because I have such a love for them. And yeah, I honestly I do feel extremely privileged and blessed to be able to help them. And like I said, I know it's not for everybody, but there's always a way people can help. And I want people to know that, whether it's you know, monetary reasons or whether it's the support of holding snow fencing, so something can be helped. There is always something that you can do.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Sharing and push on social media because even if you can't help, that doesn't mean you're a rich aunt in Florida who has nothing to do with her money, can't send a couple dollars. Rachel's wait. So share Rachel's posts. If there's any lesson, share Rachel's posts. But yeah, so thank you. It's been an absolute blessing to have you here. And we normally close out with remember that rescue is rebellion. And if you want to, I will say the first part and you can say rebellion. And that'll close out our episode. So do you want to do that? Sure. All right. Thanks so much for listening, everyone. Follow us on Instagram at RescueRebelspod. Send us an email if you're interested in telling us an episode you would like to hear. Just given a great thanks to Rachel for coming on the pod today. That is rescuerebelspod at gmail. If you left us a rating, we can send you a sticker. So with no further ado, please listen next time. Remember that rescue is without. Bye, guys.