Source: WILD TV: "Wildlife in the City"
Funding for the VITAL/Ready to Teach collection was secured through the United States Department of Education under the Ready to Teach Program.
Mia rehabilitates squirrels in this segment from WILD TV. Mia’s mother is a state licensed animal rehabilitator. She rescues and takes care of orphaned or injured wildlife with the goal of returning them back to the wild when they are healthy and old enough to survive on their own. Mia and her mother do not get paid to do this. They do volunteer work because they care for animals. The video shows Mia feeding baby squirrels. However, to survive in the wild, the animals learn to be skittish of people and predators.
Download and ShareThe following Frame, Focus and Follow-up suggestions are best suited for elementary or middle school students using this video in an English language arts or science lesson. Be sure to modify the questions to meet your students' instructional needs.
What is Frame, Focus and Follow-up?
Frame (ELA) Summarize what you did last night. What does it mean to summarize something?
Focus (ELA) Think about how you would summarize this video segment.
Follow Up (ELA) How would you summarize this video segment? Why is it important to be able to summarize something that you read or view? How can summarizing help you understand the story or content? What strategies do you use when you summarize a text?
Frame (SCI) What might happen to baby squirrels if their parents were killed and they were too little to survive on their own? What does an animal rescuer do?
Focus (SCI) What does an animal rescuer have to know to be able to take care of baby animals like the baby squirrels in this video segment?
Follow Up (SCI) We can see that animal rescuers are helpful to animals, but how are they also helpful to humans and society? What role do they play in the ecology of a community?
MAYA KLAUBER: I’m Maya Klauber, and I rehabilitate squirrels and wildlife with my mom. Our family takes in orphans and injured animals, squirrels, and we nurse them back to health. Whenever my mom needs extra help or they’re more animals than, more animals than she can handle, you know, I just, I just help out.
BARBARA BELLENS PICONE (FOUNDER/DIRECTOR, SQUIRREL SANCTUARY, INC.): My name is Barbara Bellens Picone and I’m the founder of the Squirrel Sanctuary Incorporated, and we’re a collective of all volunteer, state licensed wildlife rehabilitators.
MAYA: Well, we’ve been doing it for about four years, that’s when China first brought the babies to us.
MAYA: One night, my mom was coming up the driveway, and she saw China running towards her with something in her mouth, you know she figured she had killed something and she was hoping it wasn’t dead, and she placed the small creature on her leg, on her, on her feet, and it turned out to be a couple days old, the bunny, and she brought five, six back, one after another, and we were really amazed by like, you know, how much compassion she showed. We didn’t think that she would ever rescue bunnies.
JUDITH KIRSCH (NY STATE LICENSED WILDLIFE REHABILITATOR): When I went into this Rehabilitation center to bring the bunnies there, I, I just felt different and I said actually, that first day, oh, this is what I wanted to be when I grew up.
BARBARA: Wildlife rehabilitation actually is, it’s a science. It involves caring for orphans and injured wildlife, with the goal of returning these creatures back to the wild.
MAYA: We try to make it as close to their natural environment as we can, and then we release them back into the wild when they’re healthy and mature enough to go back.
BARBARA: It’s all completely out of pocket and purely by the generosity of the people who bring us animals.
MAYA: Either their mother is killed or the nest is taken down, or you know they are pushed out their homes for some reason.
MAYA: I think it’s our responsibility as people to really be aware of what we’re doing to these animals habitat. People just build houses in forests or places that have too many trees. And if you really think about - that’s home for so many animals. It would just be like someone coming in with a bulldozer and cutting down your house, where would you go? Somebody has to be there for them.
BARBARA: Squirrels were here before we moved in. They were responsible for building, you know, establishing the great forests! The nuts that they bury, all year, many of them are not eaten and those are harvested into trees.
MAYA: It’s really a full time job. You know, like, there’s always calls coming in and there’s always feedings to do, so it’s a lot of work.
BARBARA: We keep the squirrels for approximately 14-16 weeks to insure that they are fully wild, fully independent and pass certain release criteria.
MAYA: There’s a big cage outside, and we look for signs that they’re ready to go. We put branches in so we know if they can climb.
BARBARA: They have to be very agile, they have to be very strong, and to be able to recognize what is a predator, they have to shy away from people, and pets, and be fully independent.
MAYA: They actually have a hole cut in the cage, so that they could leave and come as they please when they’re old enough and they’re ready.
JUDITH: And, they just, when you open the box to release them, they just hop away, you know, it’s just as simple as that. They’re off, on their own lives.
BARBARA: And squirrels in the wild live approximately anywhere from two to seven years, depending of course, on predators, and their health. Last year I would say we’ve rehabilitated close to six hundred and fifty squirrels.
JUDITH: How can you say NO to a face like that, it’s just their totally innocent…….right?
MAYA: We need so many rehabilitators in this world, there’s such a shortage, and it’s such a great thing. You can make such a difference in like, so many lives, and like, that’s, that’s why we do it, you know? And like when we see them being released that’s just like the best feeling, ‘cause the at the end of the day you know you can go to sleep saying I helped save lives.
Loading Standards
Connections
Print Connections
