Yesterday’s shift at the Wildlife Center was tough for my heart.
I was assigned to clean one of the outdoor pens/cages for the “teenage” raccoons. The metal cage is circular and the mesh sides go up about 15 feet. The raccoons really enjoy climbing up and down the sides. Sometimes they fall, so there’s rubber matting on the floor to break their fall. When I clean the pen, you’re supposed to pick up all of the mats, so you can clean the floor and spray off each mat. So of course, during the short time period where all of the mats were stacked in one spot, one of the baby raccoons lost his grip and fell about 10 feet. 
It was terrible.
He was walking around but not using one of his front hands. Luckily, a senior volunteer was right there and picked him up to examine him and bring him down for one of the rehabilitators to take a look at. But the little guy was hurt and scared and he started screaming. I’m used to their grunts and their screams that they use when they’re fighting, but this was something entirely different. Just crazy, ear-piercing shrieking. It was horrible.
The vets are going to take a look at him and see if its a sprain or a broken bone. If its a sprain, they’ll just keep him confined to a small pen that he can’t climb in. However if its broken, he will get put down. Partially because they are such natural climbers and explorers that it would be hard to keep the hand totally immobilized. The other reason is that we’re over capacity for raccoons as it is, and it would be a resource drain that could be used for other, less thriving species.
So I’m really bumming about the little raccamundi. Apparently this sort of thing has happened before, but I just feel awful that it happened on my watch.
In other PAWS news, we just got in a Hummingbird that a lady had been feeding milk to… (rolls eyes). We also got in a bobcat! Luckily I’m not allowed to clean that guy’s cage… “Just stick your head in there, Emma, and see if he’s still hungry.” 
[...] So it turns out that the raccoon from last week had a pre-existing condition with his elbow, and he ended up getting put down. Other than that my shift this week was pretty uneventful. Just lots of cleaning, laundry and dishes. [...]