Many of our volunteers here at Suffolk Owl Sanctuary are young people looking to gain practical skills and experience to enhance their CVs for the world of work. Animal care is a highly competitive field and jobs are often over-applied for, so having voluntary experience can sometimes help move you nearer the top of the pile. Here’s what one of our Volunteers and Work Experience students, Izzy, had to say.
I am a third-year undergraduate student studying for a BSc Ecology & Wildlife Conservation degree at the University of Reading.
I’ve been a volunteer at SOS for over a year, so when the opportunity arose to do a credited work placement for university, I knew SOS would be the perfect place to undertake this. I thoroughly enjoy volunteering at SOS and strongly believe in the ethos of the setting – wildlife education and direct conservation through the rehabilitation.
Izzy has worked with many of our birds, including our young Ashy-faced Owls
Day to day tasks include feed preparation and distribution, aviary/enclosure cleaning and general site maintenance. There’s a lot of cleaning involved in animal husbandry to keep the animals happy and healthy, but this is one of my favourite jobs as I wholeheartedly believe I am at my happiest in the outdoors when covered in mud, rain, or animal poo! If you are willing get stuck in with the “less glamourous” jobs, then I absolutely recommend volunteering because you more than get out what you put in.
Some of the highlights of my placement have included provisioning enrichment devices, working with critically endangered species, and assisting in the raptor hospital. I developed my animal handling skills in the raptor hospital through safe capture, restraint, and transport of birds. It is an absolute privilege to be able to be able to assist with the care and rehabilitation of sick and injured raptors, knowing that so many are released back into the wild, directly contributing to East Anglia’s populations of wild raptors.
Izzy got to help with some of the Raptor Hospital procedures, including holding birds while they received medication
Creating enrichment for the animals was fun, but quite the challenge! The animals are so intelligent, it certainly makes coming up with new ideas a challenge. Nonetheless, Fred the caracara seemed to particularly enjoy his ‘kerplunk’ style enrichment! I’ve also really enjoyed working on enriching target training exercises with Diamond the silver fox.
Fred with his Kerplunk game
I’ve loved working with the critically endangered vultures: Ruby the Rüppells Griffon Vulture and Jack and Rose the Hooded Vultures. These species are very misunderstood and widely persecuted in the wild, so it has been very important to me to know I am playing a part in their education and conservation.
Alongside typical animal husbandry duties I have greatly improved more specialised skills, such as changing the birds’ equipment, attaching telemetry devices, assisting with the training of the centre birds, and helping with the daily weigh round. I have enjoyed accompanying the trainee falconers on weigh rounds because it’s great opportunity to assess the birds individual characters, behaviours, health, and how that influences diet and nutrition.
Izzy with one of our Harris Hawks
I have been able to develop animal husbandry skills across a wide range of taxa, including birds of prey, small mammals such as foxes and meerkats, and invertebrates.
I’ve also developed communication and public engagement skills by assisting at meerkat talks - and by jumping around as a grasshopper during food chain demonstrations over summer! Communication and education play a vital role in conservation, so it was a pleasure to be given these opportunities and responsibilities.
Izzy with her presentation about her work placement with us
As much as I adore all the animals, one of the main reasons I love volunteering at SOS is because of the dedication and kindness of the staff; the passion they have for their work and their dedication to my learning has played an invaluable part in my skill development. Working at SOS has enabled me to forge a pathway between my conservation studies and the working world, thoroughly preparing me for my career beyond university.
We are delighted that Izzy also chose to do her dissertation on our Raptor Hospital, and spent part of her summer digitising all of our hospital records, going back over 10 years! This will make it so much easier for future studies to look at patterns and trends in our intakes.
We look forward to sharing the results of her study with you next year, as it is still a work-in-progress.