Carolina Raptor Center - Student/Intern Experiences

A Visit to Carolina Raptor Center from the College of Veterinary Medicine at NC State University.

Carolina Raptor Center grew from conversations between academics at Davidson College and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. When an injured bird arrived at UNC-C, Dr. Brown recruited a graduate student to help him nurse the bird back to health. More injured raptors arrived, students volunteered to help and Carolina Raptor Rehabilitation and Research Center was created. Twenty-seven years later, almost 12,000 patients have been received and treated. The recovery and release rate of owls, eagles, hawks and falcons at Carolina Raptor Center is one of the highest in the country. But few people know that Carolina Raptor Center's work affects hundreds of people that come to learn medical skills associated with treating injured birds.
Mathias Engelmann, Director of Rehabilitation, noted, "We really think of Carolina Raptor Center as an educational organization. Volunteers and interns have always been an important part of our family. It's exciting to see how many of them entered careers as veterinarians, biologists and animal handlers." Currently, over 200 individuals serve in many capacities. Rehabilitation volunteers, under staff supervision, learn to perform many of the diagnostic and clinical procedures. They enhance their own experiences and benefit in many ways from this relationship.

Wayne Reid, a student at the College of Veterinary Medicine, NCSU, Class of 2008, reflected on his introduction to Carolina Raptor Center. "I came to one of the orientations with my parents and actually started volunteering here during my senior year of high school. I was allowed to do everything from draw blood on the birds that we have at the Carolina Raptor Center to looking at the radiographs to help figure out which bones were broken and help learn the anatomy and so forth."

For years, Carolina Raptor Center has supported teaching opportunities. Volunteers, interns and other rehabilitators regularly visit and study here. Katherine Ratzlaff, CVM-NCSU, Class of 2010, remembers, "Three years ago, when I was an undergrad, I did an internship at the Carolina Raptor Center and absolutely fell in love with it. I learned a whole lot of skills that I would have never gotten in a veterinary clinic."

The College of Veterinary Medicine at NC State University, recognizes that Carolina Raptor Center offers special benefits to their students. Since 1999, Dr. Laurie Degernes, Associate Professor of Avian Medicine and Epidemiology at the College of Veterinary Medicine at NCSU, has been working with Carolina Raptor Center to create special learning opportunities. Reflecting on these experiences, Dr. Degernes said, "The students that have background are three steps ahead of the other students. It makes a big difference for them." Based on these observations Dr. Degernes created several new programs for her students. Reflecting on one of the first programs, she said, "The selective program was started in the late 1990s to facilitate opportunities for students to learn all kinds of different areas of veterinary medicine. We started this program here, the raptor selective, in 2000. It's a one week program to teach six students raptor medicine and rehabilitation, or at least introduce them to that concept. And they get an experience that's unique."

In December 2006, Dr. Degernes returned to Carolina Raptor Center with six students to study raptor rehabilitation and medical procedures. During their visit the students learned to conduct exams and evaluations, take blood samples and read slides, take radiographs and evaluate them for broken bones and much more. Jennifer Mercier; CVM-NCSU, Class of 2009, was one of the 2006 externs. She reflected on the class, "The experience we have had as NC State students here in five days has been really incredible experience. I would imagine that if you expanded this to a two or three month externship it would be the equivalent of a year's worth of experience in a regular clinic or at a vet school." It's these experiences that motivate Dr. Degernes. She remarked, "That's one of the reasons for working with birds of prey - to use them as models for avian medicine. So a lot of what we learn in treating wounds, learning physical exams, collecting blood samples, collecting other diagnostics, taking radiographs. All those kinds of things are applicable to pet bird care too. So I look at learning the skills with raptors as being very applicable to pet bird medicine."

Her students also seem to realize this. Dr. Degernes mentioned the challenge, "Each year we take six students for the raptor selective and there is a lot of competition for it." A number of students have expressed interest in repeating the class, but space has been too limited. Carolina Raptor Center is investigating ways to fund the expansion of programs similar to this so that students could participate on a year-round basis. Alan Barnhardt, CRC's President/CEO, said, "We're looking for individuals, corporations or foundations that would be interested in funding these programs. Until then the opportunities will be limited to annual rehabilitation seminars and special classes."

When asked if this type of program was available at other schools, Dr. Degernes replied, "Is it a unique experience among vet schools? Well this one week selective probably is. There are other externship opportunities for vet schools which ultimately I would like to see become established here where senior veterinary students can participate in a two or four week externship to get more in-depth experience than we can cover in a one-week experience." Jennifer Mercier; CVM-NCSU, Class of 2009 commented on her experience. "I think that studying avian medicine will definitely help me in my career to be more employable. There are many, many people out there that have pet birds. And certainly there is a lot that we are learning here with wild birds that will translate directly into treating pet birds."

Both students and their professors realize the value of hands-on study. Dr. Degernes stated, "In the course of the week, even in a short week, I can see a huge difference between the student's abilities and their confidence on day one vs: day five. It's just an incredible transition. They finish the week just glowing because they know they can pick up a red-tail hawk and they can do the physical and they can give it its medications and they can look in the eyes and they can diagnose its problems. They have learned so much in a short time. Katherine Ratzlaff said of her experience, "The selective at Carolina Raptor Center helped me to apply the information I gained at the College of Veterinary Medicine and has given me a better understanding of how to treat birds."

Paige Baker remembered, "Everything kind of came together yesterday when we were working on three or four of the birds and I felt like I really understood what was going on and getting to see normal eyes and eyes that have been damaged. It's been a great help for me."

The relationship that Carolina Raptor Center has with universities has always been strong. Dr. Degernes noted, "It wouldn't be possible to teach wild bird medicine or raptor medicine at the College of Veterinary Medicine without the direct participation and cooperation of Carolina Raptor Center. If we opened it up there would be five or ten times that many students that would take the selective. And many would take it more than once if the opportunity became available. So we need more resources, we need more time slots, we need more spaces for students and we need this to be able to continue to accommodate the growing interest among students for wildlife medicine."

Carolina Raptor Center's potential includes the addition of a veterinary/research hospital that would be open to interns on a year-round basis. Its licensed staff would be aligned with local universities and support them in providing unequaled hands-on educational opportunities for veterinary and biology students. Individuals and groups interested in contributing to endowments or other funding opportunities may contact Jim Warren, Carolina Raptor Center's Chief Operating Officer, at 704/875-6521 x 112 or email jimwarren@carolinaraptorcenter.org.