Travel with Purpose by Jeff Blumenfeld

Author:Jeff Blumenfeld [Blumenfeld, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2018-12-21T16:00:00+00:00

You’re Not Always Going to Be Assigned the Fun Jobs

Thoughts of pelicans eating out of my hand and parrots perched on my shoulder as if I were a pirate were soon dashed when I visit the Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center in Tavernier, Florida. I was visiting relatives in nearby Key Largo and knew that volunteers are the lifeblood of this nonprofit dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of native and migratory wild birds that have been harmed or displaced. The center also provides a humane shelter for birds that cannot be released. Its permanent inhabitants include various owls, hawks, falcons, and turkey vultures that look all the world as if they walked out of a Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon. Some were injured in auto accidents; others were shot by pellet guns and attacked by domestic house cats.

The facility was founded in 1991 by Laura Quinn, who started by providing modest rehabilitation facilities behind her small oceanfront home. What began as a homegrown effort to heal broken wings and remove fishhooks and monofilament line grew into a 5.5-acre property on which only about an acre is developed to provide habitats for approximately one hundred birds along serpentine walkways. Pelicans, which appear to be the evolutionary offspring of dinosaurs, peer down from rooftops. The rest of the property is lush native vegetation, mangroves, hammocks, and wetlands. The facility was still feeling the aftereffects of Hurricane Irma, which roared through three months before in September 2017.

During my visit, I met with assistant director Jordan Budnik, a twenty-six-year-old educator from Atlanta, standing on the crushed coral driveway of the facility. There’s a forty-year-old military macaw named Nikki perched on her right shoulder. She occasionally nuzzles the bird, which likes to dance to Latin music Budnik plays on her smartphone (the macaw’s top favorite is “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi, featuring Daddy Yankee).

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