Tamie O.

Tamie has always loved animals, as far back as she can remember, and she was always trying to save something. When she was 5 old her family moved to Africa, and of course she had visions of playing with lion cubs and climbing trees with monkeys, so you can imagine her disappointment to find that like here, the majority of the wild animals she would see lived in a zoo. The zoo is where Tamie had her first up close and personal wild animal experience. They were watching the gorillas when one climbed over the wall of its enclosure. Somehow in the ensuing confusion the zookeeper inadvertently let out two more. People were running and screaming, it was total pandemonium. Tamie's mom screamed as two gorillas ran right towards them and one of them grabbed hold of little Tamie's wrist and kept going. Luckily he didn't get far before Tamie's Dad was able to grab her and pull her back. To this day you can see the scar on her wrist from her would be kidnappers nails. Fortunately that wild animal experience didn't dissuade her! As an adult, she found a baby squirrel laying on hot blacktop one afternoon. She tried to find a wildlife rehabilitator but was told by her local DEC office that the closest one was almost 40 minutes away. Tamie knew then what she needed to do, and that year got licensed. Soon she was coordinating with rehabbers across the state, picking up tips and sharing resources. When she first started she wasn't licensed to work with rabies vector animals (RVS), and realized she was spending a lot of time transporting these animals, especially baby raccoons, to Richard Wohlegemuth at the Wildlife Wishing Well in Ithaca NY. It wasn't long before they became friends and he became her mentor. It was evident that they needed more rehabilitators to work with these animals in her area, so with Richard's encouragement, Tamie got her RVS license. She says that the work is hard, sleep only occurs in two hour increments, and rehabbing wildlife is expensive but it's all worth it! An incubator will help her with the most fragile babies.