Talk on the Wild Side
with Rachel Taylor

Transcription

Vikky Locke

I am Vikki Locke with C2 Communications, and this is Talk on the Wild Side, where we talk about careers in conservation and is sponsored by the Florida Wildlife Federation. Joining us today is Rachel Taylor. Hey Rachel!

Rachel Taylor

Hi.

Vikky Locke

Hi! Rachel is the Education and Outreach Director of CROW. Now, tell everybody what CROW stands for.

Rachel Taylor

It stands for Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife.

Vikky Locke

And you got the coolest job, I think, ever, because it’s not your typical office environment. I want you to explain about your Ambassador Wheels.

Rachel Taylor

Actually, he was a patient of ours, so; his nickname is Wheels because we made him a contraption that was more or less like a scooter for him.

Vikky Locke

And he’s a tortoise.

Rachel Taylor

Yes, he’s a gopher tortoise that came to us with pretty weak back legs. So when he was walking, he would drag his back legs. So part of what we do here is rehab patients, and so we were able to rehab him. He stayed about five and a half months with us, and then he proved that he was ready to go, so we were able to release it back into the wild, so it was pretty cool. I made a connection with him because I grazed him a lot on those wheels.

Vikky Locke

He was in the office just wheeling around, yes?

Rachel Taylor

Yes, he was down at the hospital hanging out with us.

Vikky Locke

CROW takes about what, 5,000 animals?

Rachel Taylor

Yeah, we almost hit the 6,000-mark last year. I think we got up to 5,633 maybe, something around there, so it’s continuously growing for the past couple of years. We hope that part of it is because people are educated, so they know what to do if they find an injured animal, so we’re hoping that’s why and they’re able to call us and bring them in, and stuff like that.

Vikky Locke

So there’s an injured animal, and you are right there.

Rachel Taylor

What happens is that if you find an injured animal pretty much anywhere in Lee County, you can give us a call, and then we’ll set up transport. Whether the person, the finder, brings the animal to a partnership that we have with veterinary clinics, or they bring it directly to CROW or if it’s like a certain animal that might be more or less dangerous, we can send out volunteers or actually our staff to rescue the animal, and then we bring it to CROW. We also have a fully functioning hospital where they can get treatment, and then, ultimately, we will release them. It’s a pretty cool game.

Vikky Locke

You grew up in the Clearwater Beach area, and you loved animals, and you loved the water, but the whole animal rehab, was it your calling at first? What happened?

Rachel Taylor

No, I’m kind of on the administration side of it, and I actually got an internship in December of 2019 to work here as Education and Marketing Intern. I had a lot of educational background. I almost majored in education, and then I actually worked with a bunch of kids like that was always my job was childcare and soI was like, oh I can get dip my toes in it and see where it’s at. When I came to the internship, I was able to do different outreach programs. I then tagged along with our marketing people into public outreach, public social media, everything like that. So then, unfortunately, kind of, fortunately, COVID hit halfway through my internship. Hence, the last three months of my internship, I worked down at the hospital kind of as an honorary rehabber, so that’s where I got a lot of the hands-on stuff, and then after another eight months, they called me again, and that’s how I ended up back here. I like the education side of it, but it’s still awesome because I still get to be a part of releases, intakes, and everything like that.

Vikky Locke

Let’s talk about the hawk program you’re involved with.

Rachel Taylor

We have a bunch of outreach programs in general. We go anywhere from country clubs and social clubs, all the way down to elementary schools. I spent all week at an elementary school teaching elementary kids about alligators, reptiles, snakes, and everything like that. Especially in these times when they are not able to do field trips, for us to be able to go up to them and bring some of our rescue animals is pretty cool. Then just random community events, we do also do a lot of conservation events and things like that, so it’s fine.

Vikky Locke

She is one of the ambassadors. Tell everyone about Gigi.

Rachel Taylor

Og, Gig! I love this possum. She is an ambassador possum because she’s not able to be released back in the wild, and that is because she’s missing her tale, so when she came in, she was just a baby, and she came in without a tail pretty much. It was chewed off; we don’t know really what happened. She came in with siblings, a common thing is that siblings will get a little aggressive and bite off tails, but again, we don’t know what happened, so anyways, we were able to make her an ambassador. We trained her and got her used to humans. She can’t go back because she doesn’t have a tail, and possums need their tail for balance and, amongst other things, so she is two years old and is really the start of the show. Everywhere we take her, everybody is like, “Oh, it’s a possum,” and they walk around, and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, look at the possum.” It brings a lot of awareness to possums because they don’t know they’re pretty cool animals and very environmentally friendly, so it’s really nice to be able to have a real-life one and say, “this is what they do, and this is why they’re so great.” She’s adorable. She’s one of the favorites, for sure.

Vikky Locke

Have you ever turned an animal away?

Rachel Taylor

No, we don’t turn any animals away. The only thing would be domesticated animals, anything like the dogs and cats you find in a household, we prefer that you go to a veterinarian clinic, but other than that, we don’t take big sea animals. We don’t have any manatees or dolphins or anything like that. We do take the big sea turtles. We are the only sea turtle Hospital between Sarasota and the keys on this coast, so we get a handful of sea turtles, and then big alligators is the only thing we don’t take. They have to be smaller than four feet for them to come to us because we don’t have the facilities for them but, other than that, we take everything else.

Vikky Locke

Have you ever had to deal with an alligator?

Rachel Taylor

Surprisingly we’ve only had like 22 alligators since we started keeping records in 2012, so not that many, but yeah, it does happen. They do come in. We actually have an alligator ambassador too.

Vikky Locke

You do?

Rachel Taylor

Yeah, yeah. Her name is Sidney; she’s pretty cool. She’s about a foot and a half long right now.

Vikky Locke

What’s her name?

Rachel Taylor

Sidney, the alligator. She hangs out with us a lot, and she’s perfect for educational programs too. So it’s a lot of fun.

Vikky Locke

What fun, really! Get everybody your website if they’d like more information about CROW.

Rachel Taylor

Our website is www.crowclinic.org, and you can find any information if you rescued an animal, you found an animal, anything like that. If you want to get in contact with us, follow the different programs we offer; pretty much everything is on that website.

Vikky Locke

Great information. Thanks so much, Rachel.

Rachel Taylor

Absolutely. Thank you.

Vikky Locke

Thanks to the Florida Wildlife Federation for sponsoring Talk on the Wild Side. You can learn more at floridawildlifefederation.org.