Okay, the hour they took over. But we had been eagerly looking forward to this day, and didn’t soon forget it after it happened.

During the month of June, our charity was the Wildlife in Need Center. These wonderful people rescue and rehabilitate animals that have encountered misfortune, either through natural means or through humanity (and yes, it’s most often through humanity).

Some animals can’t be released back into the wild, either for health or other issues, or because they’d been stolen right out of their nests or lairs as babies and had imprinted themselves on their human captors, and thus becoming unable to fend for themselves in the wild.

And then we got to meet some of them! Here’s the full list of Animal Ambassadors. Read along to spot the five that came to our company:

Snek!

Kestrel!

We learned something about each animal beyond what and who they were.

For example, the turtle has gotten a bit too big for her shell. I am sure she just needs to rearrange some furniture…

Turtle!

Also, Waldo Woodchuck is NOT a morning chuck and was reported as being grumpy when he was extracted from his lair and loaded into his crate to come here, but he came out readily enough with the array of treats presented before him.

Woodchuck!

Dakota Owl has a multifaceted story. He’s been at the Center for 16 years; he’d been with his previous person there for 14 years. She died two years ago from cancer, and Dakota went through a mourning period. He’s been two years with our demonstrator here, and we could see how much they have bonded.

Owl!

He also was owlnapped several years ago by two teenage boys who took him to a drinking party. http://www.jsonline.com/…/not-really-a-hoot-thieves…

Because originally he’d been taken from his nest as an owlet by a couple who thought it’d be just great to own a pet owl–and he was only removed from that situation when they took him to a vet, wondering why their pet owl wasn’t doing so well (they’d been feeding him cat food)–he had completely imprinted on humans, so he didn’t know what to do about predators, and not a whole lot about prey.

It took them three weeks to get him back; he had been sighted roosting in trees, but because the perches offered for him to fly down and roost on weren’t the ones he was used to, he didn’t come down. They only retrieved him when, weakened through lack of food, he fell off a branch to the ground.

It took four months of physical rehabilitation to get him back to a state close to normal, and to this day he gets very anxious around anyone who looks like those two teenage boys.

The boys have gone on to a rich life full of more crime.

After just one hour spent in their company, this seems like such a cool, caring place for these animals to be. The ones that aren’t able to be rehabbed into the wild are living pretty good lives!