Ana Maria A.

After she watched a Netflix show on British Wildlife Rehabilitation, Ana Maria immediately knew that she wanted to become a rehabber. She started volunteering with a nearby center and became a Class 1 RVS rehabilitator. She loves everything about it - from cleaning floor pans to bottle feeding orphans and educating the public. This will be Ana Maria's first spring as an independent rehabber and she knows that having an incubator will be a huge help. She already had an injured chipmunk that could certainly have used the warmth and safety. Ana says that she considers herself lucky to have the opportunity to work with animals so closely. This poem, "The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry clearly expresses her feelings about the wild things she interacts with, and she's sure it will ring true to many of you as well.

"When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."