Matthew Nielsen

Animal Care Intern

The Wildlife Science Center was a wonderful internship with lots of learning
opportunities. I felt they were genuinely interested in helping me better myself in my chosen
field and helped in any way they safely could. I felt that I did a decent job as an intern there and
got the impression I was the centers favorite amongst the animal care interns.
The skills that I brought to the center
included the ability to recognize basic canine
and feline behavior, the skills of a master
jerry rigger, and the basic knowledge of
animal husbandry I gained from raising
poultry. I also acquired many skills during my
duration at the center. These skills include falconry, Chemical immobilization, animal restraints,
some veterinary procedures and basic animal first aid, and the basics in the socialization of
animals. The skills I learned in falconry include catching the bird, being comfortable with the
bird on fist and be able to do tasks with the bird on fist, weighing the birds, checking the birds
feet and recognizing signs of bumble foot and other injuries, how
to cast birds, performing flight training, and giving topical and
oral medication to birds of prey. The skills I learned in chemical
immobilization and animal restraint are just the basic procedures
for both. I learned several veterinary procedures during my time
at the center including how to give shots, clean wounds,
administer oral and topical medication, and how to recognize

when there has been a confrontation in packs after the fact. The final skill I learned was the
process for socializing animals to humans. I learned this through hands on experience with a
bear cub. I did this by starting when he was very young and hand feeding him so that he started
to associate humans with food. He eventually decided I was okay and would willingly eat out of
my hand and even started to try and play with me like I was another cub. He would mouth my

arm and paw at me playfully. When he got to be bigger this presented to be a little bit of a
problem because Im not built like a bear so it started to become hazardous for me to let the
bear play with me. When this occurred I backed off on the hand feeding and interaction and let
him interact with the big bears through the fence more. Last week I learned that he was
introduced into the pen with the rest of the bears and it was a huge success.

Some of the areas that I found that I need to work on from working at the center are
communication and teamwork. I have always struggled in these areas in life and the center is
no exception. I have a hard time keeping my supervisors in the loop when I am working
throughout the day. I tend to see something wrong and fix it without asking if there was a
reason that it was that way. Most of the time this is fine but there were a few occasions where
there was a reason that it was that way. I also find it difficult to ask for help so I had a few
instances where I was getting really frustrated while trying to complete a task by myself that
would have been easy with two people. I plan to improve these areas by just being aware that I
have issues in these areas and when I get frustrated doing something alone to remind myself
that I can ask for assistance. I will also try and remind myself throughout tasks to communicate
with my supervisor a few times throughout the day.
This internship experience will affect my remaining time in college by giving me focus as
to why some of the knowledge gained from classes is important for real world applications. I
am already noticing that my Raptor Ecology class is easier than I thought it would be because I
have worked with and handled many of the birds that we talk about in the class. I am also
finding that a lot of the concepts that we are learning in wildlife ecology and dealing with the
public I have seen or used at the center.
In pursuing a career in animal care and conservation I will chose courses that have a
degree of animal handling involved with the class and classes that deal with ecology so that I
can keep learning and maintain skills in dealing with wild animals and understand the types of
enrichment they may need in captive situations. I also know there is very few jobs in the field of

animal care so by also focusing on the ecology aspects I can still ensure I have a possible job
after I graduate.
I was always early for my shifts at the center and ready to work, In fact most days I beat
the staff to the center. I always arrived to the center clean and smelling good, never went home
that way though. Once I got through training and got a pattern down for how the different days
of the week work I would start working and pound out the typical daily tasks without prompting
and then when that was finished I would seek out the random tasks that they wanted me to get
done that day. Most days I wouldnt stop working even for lunch. I know my abilities very well
so when taking on new responsibilities I considered my abilities and if the responsibility was
within my abilities I took it without question and if it wasnt I was honest and told them it
wasnt and either they would train me in that area or give it to someone else.
I felt like it was easy to keep a positive attitude and to get along with all of the staff and
most of the volunteers. This is because we are all very similar people with very sarcastic humor
and we all have a passion for the animals we are taking care of. The hardest people to stay
positive around are the public because we cant joke the same way around them and have to
guard what we say to them. This gets especially hard around public that have never been
outside of the city and therefore know nothing.
At the center the assignment of duties are determined based on observations of the
animals interactions with you and your capabilities. Most of the animal care is shared evenly so
that everyone gets a chance to do everything sometime but things like the baby animals,
certain birds, and some of the enrichment is up to Peggy, the director, to decide if you are

capable. I feel this is a good way of assigning tasks at the center because of the potential for
injury from the animals if procedures are not followed.
Records at the center are kept in excel and in a physical library. Chemical immobilization
records, age/weight/sex info, and medical records are kept in the physical files. Whereas the
daily data that we take such as diets and bird weights are kept in a excel spreadsheet. I think
that the center should use a database software system that uplinks to the web for all of their
data because right now a fire or a power surge could easily wipe out there records. The
downfall of anything using the internet though is the increased chance of private records being
hacked.
The center works to improve their public appearance they put on events such as the
canine carnival. They also participated in the state fair this year to help gain patrons to the
center. Other ways they improve their performance is by loaning out animals, mostly wolves, in
fact Aiden and Denali at the International Wolf center are loaners from the center.
If I was offered a job at the center I would accept it in a heartbeat. However they do not
have the funding right now to hire more staff and therefore are dependent on volunteers to
stay running. I can think of no reasons I would want to turn down a job at the center.
There have been very few changes since my first report. There are only two things that
changed. The first is the coyote pup with hydrocephalous that I started working with and
observing his behavior. The second is the new female Peregrine Falcon, who is awesome, that I
started to do handling with and medical, soaking feet, right before my internship ended.

All in all this was an awesome internship that I would recommend to anyone who has a
passion for wildlife. I will be heading back in December and in February if not sooner to do
volunteer work and to observe a reproduction study.