Placement at British Wildlife Centre

Animills
Sep 5, 2018
3 min read

Anybody wanting a career working with animals knows that every job wants a lot of experience and getting that experience can be just as hard! I cannot recommend enough doing a placement at the British Wildlife Centre. Its gets booked up very quickly but the wait is well worth it. The keepers are so friendly and you get to be involved with every aspect.

Working with animals is exactly what you think it would be cleaning up poo and giving the animals food we would definitely turn our noses up at. There is nothing glamorous about the role at all! But its getting to work with animals that you get to see every day and build a relationship with that makes it all worthwhile.

One of the first character that I got to meet was the infamous Flo. Flo is definitely my favourite animal that I got to work with. She is a very tame fox that loves a good stroke and treats. I have wild foxes in my garden and I love watching them. So getting to be not only close but touching a fox was definitely a dream come true. One thing I definitely wont miss is picking up fox poo as when they say it stinks they really mean it!

Easily my second favourite was a rescued baby hedgehog that was being hand reared by a keeper, called Einspine. Hugs with this little hoglet were taken at every opportunity. I also got to hold a wriggle adult hedgehog which with sensitive skin did not go quite as well. They use these hedgehogs to educate people about the rapid decline of hedgehogs and ways to increase their numbers in your garden.

Each day I was allocated to a section of the wildlife centre where I helped to clean and feed the animals. One of my favourite sections was the birds and owls. Getting to see behind the scenes and meeting some of their off show birds was great. I also got the chance to fly an owl which was breath-taking!

One of my favourite moments was getting to feel like a Disney princess and hand feeding deer. With a big bucket of apples I got to go into their paddock and feed three of the deer that had been hand reared, so are very tame. Keepers at British Wildlife Centre are encouraged to spend any spare time with the animals which I think is a great attitude to have and a not a bad job either!

These pictures are all taken on my iphone7 so aren't the best quality. I was having such a good time that I often forgot to take pictures of what I was doing. This was a truly inspiring week that just confirmed to me even more that I want to work with animals. It came at the right time as I had just found out my summer job was not going to be extended so this was a great motivator. One of the experiences that I will never forget was getting to feed Scottish Wildcats! My dream career would be a big cat keeper and I could not have loved this experience anymore. I am hopeful that I will get to continue my career that had only just started in an animal field. Its hard not to love getting to work with inspiring and amazing animals every day.

In the meantime enjoy these cute pictures of a pine martin.