Photo with 7 notes
My job is awesome.
Today we got in our first bear of the year for a restraint class we’re doing in May. This big 350+ pound boar was trapped after eating lots of poultry and completely demolishing a fancy chicken coop (fox proof does not equal bear proof).
I learned how to prepare darts for sedating wildlife, and watched the vet use the pistol dart gun to sedate him. It took 3 darts (two had old telazol which wasn’t as effective so we had to find the newer stuff) and almost an hour to completely knock him out. Once he was out the sci aides and two law enforcement ROP high school students dragged him out and weighed him (they just happened to be in the right place at the right time and had an awesome time helping with the bear, one admitted that working with wildlife was possibly cooler than law enforcement).
I was expecting to just watch him get processed, but was tasked with injecting his post-darting antibiotics (two huge syringes full of penicillin) which was my first time injecting anything into a live animal. Needless to say getting to work with the bear today made the horrific flu-like symptoms of my pre-exposure rabies vaccine series totally worth it.
Oh and that person in the picture is me, I realized I have no pictures of myself in here since normally I’m taking pictures of other people/the animals/etc.
