Sofie Adelaar – Netherlands

Hi, I’m Sofie from the Netherlands and i’ve worked at CritterCare Wildlife Society from September 2017 – January 2018. In one word; unforgettable. The first time I fed my baby squirrels I just melted of the cuteness of it. It is such a rewarding job, to see them growing and becoming more and more like a real wild squirrel. It makes you feel really proud when they’re getting released and run up the tree (one of my squirrels even looked back at me like see wanted to say good bye, just breaks your heart). I’ve had the privilege to work with the coyotes, team work is really important with these ones, you really need to be able to trust your coyote-partner especially with catching and handling these coyotes. I was luckily enough to get trained by a really good coyote parent and worked together with two hard working interns. Beside being a coyote parent I also had the care over few other animals. I have learned so much working with various animals, handling them for examinations, feeding them, looking for signs if the animal is getting better or not. Releasing them back in the nature is the best feeling ever, that makes the hard work, lot of cleaning and early feeds all worth it.

Beside the whole experiencing of taking care of all these animals, going on very exciting rescues and the fantastic releases, you will also experiencing living with all the other interns from every in the world. I have met so many incredible people, learning a lot about their cultures and it was a pleasure to work with these interns. We did a lot of holidays together; Halloween, thanksgiving, Sinterklaas (Dutch holiday) Christmas and NYE, we made meals together and did presents games. It is not always easy to live and work 24/7 with “strangers” but I can truly say that I’ve made some friends here that made my time so much better at cc. Working was a lot of fun with them. The winter time is not that busy, so we also had some time to go out after work, going out for diner, watching an ice-hockey game or visiting the Langley swimming pool. When the weather was good I would visit the park next to cc or I would bike around the area.

I can say that all in all my internship at CritterCare has been amazing, I’ve learned so much about working with animals and improved a lot of my personal skills.

I want to thank Gail, the supervisors and the handymen Stijn & Axl for making my internship an unforgettable experience. I’ve had the best time.