Elissa Shanley, AS '96, AG 2000, has been an avid bird-watcher for many years, but she had never held one of the delicate creatures in her hands before last year, when she worked as an intern for Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research Inc., one of the largest wildlife rehabilitation facilities in the country.

"Until that moment, I don't think I had a true appreciation of how light and fragile they are," said Shanley, who continues to volunteer at the agency's Frink Center for Wildlife, a federally licensed rehabilitation center just north of Newark.

"I love all animals, but there's just something special about birds."

Shanley and other interns are special to the center, too, according to Lynn McDowell, Tri-State's associate clinic director. Without the extra help provided by paid and volunteer interns, she said, Tri-State would be unable to function in the summer. That's when its resident population of injured and orphaned birds swells from a wintertime daily average of 75-100 to as many as 350.

"Since our caseload more than triples in the summer, and the babies need feeding at least once or twice an hour, our summer staff works hard, and the interns are essential," McDowell said. "It's a big responsibility we give to them, and they handle it very well."

Most of the interns are UD students or new graduates, although a few are from other universities. Last summer, the center's 11 interns–seven who worked full time and were paid a stipend and four who worked part time as volunteers–included UD students majoring in wildlife conservation, animal science, general agriculture and biology.

McDowell, who hires and supervises the interns, said she advertises for candidates and recruits in person at job fairs at UD's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Last summer, she said, so many qualified students applied for the program that the center added some volunteer positions and will give those interns special consideration next summer in filling the paid internships.

Paid or unpaid, the interns gain valuable training and experience, McDowell said. "The internship also lets them find out if they might like to go into wildlife rehabilitation as a career or continue in the field as a volunteer, and it gives them a good résumé item."

Eve Tomczak, AG 2003, a wildlife conservation major who still is exploring various career options, said her Tri-State internship last summer was as enjoyable as it was educational. "I love animals, so when I first heard about the internship, I got very interested, for my future career and also personally," she said. "We had a week of training, and then we got lots of different kinds of experience, so it was a great introduction to the field for me."

During the busy summer months, Tri-State's interns work varying schedules to ensure that someone always is on duty from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. They cover two shifts a day, seven days a week. Much of the work involves caring for the birds that soon will be well enough for release and are kept in large, outdoor cages. Interns keep those birds fed and their cages clean, and they supervise some of the many volunteers on whom the center relies year-round. The interns also rotate their duties, spending part of the summer caring for the newer arrivals–baby birds in incubators and those birds with more recent or serious injuries, which are kept indoors in cages or covered playpens until they are sufficiently recovered to move to an outdoor enclosure.

"The interns get some experience helping out in the clinic, too, with medical treatment," McDowell said. "We make it a point to give them a range of duties, so they can see what wildlife rehabilitation involves."

Michelle Kraft, AG 2002, who has wanted to work for Tri-State since she was a high school volunteer, said her internship last summer helped her prepare to become a veterinarian. "I helped out in the clinic," said Kraft, an animal science major with a pre-vet concentration, "where I learned a lot about giving medication and about other medical procedures."

Tomczak began her internship in the "baby room," feeding the tiniest birds by hand with syringes and offering them water droplets on the tips of small paintbrushes. "The youngest ones need to be fed every 20 minutes, so it's just a constant process," she recalls. "I was really busy, but being so close to such beautiful birds was an amazing experience."

At other times during the summer, Tomczak worked with the older birds, both indoors and out, and once spent a challenging day using a net to catch owls in their top-of-the-cage perches, while avoiding their sharp talons, and taking them for medical check-ups.

In addition to the usual feeding and cleaning, Shanley said she also learned to administer medication, evaluate a bird's condition and do other rehabilitation work. One memorable afternoon, she rescued a red-shouldered hawk that had become entangled in a net over a pond and brought it to the center for treatment.

"You learn how to do that kind of thing from working here, just like you learn how to handle a dog or any other animal from being around them," she said. "With the birds, you just have to watch out for their mouths while you secure their feet and hold them in a position where they feel safe."

The nonprofit Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research Inc., founded in 1977, operates its clinic 365 days a year and treats more than 3,500 injured or orphaned wild birds annually. It handles species ranging from hummingbirds to eagles.

Tri-State's Frink Center contains X-ray and surgical rooms, rooms that hold birds in incubators and various types of cages, an area where food is stored and prepared and feeding charts are maintained, a conference center and offices for the oil spill response team, whose members are trained to clean and care for birds damaged by oil. Outdoors, there are large aviaries where birds can practice flying in preparation for release, enclosures that can be darkened for nocturnal birds and cages with pools to accommodate seabirds and waterfowl.

"Birds are brought to us by the public, by [Delaware Department of] Fish and Wildlife agents and by other rehab agencies," said Christina Motoyoshi, Tri-State's executive director. "Most have been injured by human activity. They've flown into buildings, been hit by cars or attacked by someone's pet cat, lost their nest when a tree was cut down or gotten entangled in fishing line. Our goal is to release all healthy birds back into the wild at an appropriate time and place,"

The center also offers educational outreach programs, and the oil spill team, which travels worldwide, is one of the few in the United States capable of handling a large spill, Motoyoshi said. The Tri-State staff includes veterinarians, wildlife biologists and rehabilitators. Trained volunteers donate more than 30,000 hours of assistance each year.

"Wildlife rehabilitation has really become a profession," said Motoyoshi. "It's expanded far beyond its roots in home-based rehabilitation." That's one reason, she said, the center welcomes not just the assistance the summer interns provide, but the opportunity to help train students interested in the profession.

For more information about Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research, call 737-9543; or see the web site at [www.tristatebird.org].