Volunteer Profile: June Ferrero
As she sat down in her chair in the darkened room of the Wildlife Center, little did June know that her life was about to take a new turn.
As the orientation video started, she listened, fascinated, to the interviews and animal rescue stories. When a rehabilitated Golden Eagle soared across the screen into the sky towards freedom, June Ferrero was hooked and made her commitment to become a Center animal care volunteer.
June initially took the cautious approach, only trusting herself to clean the animal kitchen and do the never ending loads of laundry. She was coaxed out of her shell by her patient animal care supervisor, Debbie Champion. One day, a few months after she started, an overwhelmed squirrel team volunteer came into the Center to pick up yet another load of squirrels. June overheard her say the team was in great need of more people to care for squirrels in their homes. She tentatively volunteered to watch the squirrels on a short-term basis. That was in July of 2001, and June is still at it! June did not have a particular love of squirrels when she stepped up to take them home. She was willing to be trained to care for any animal and squirrels just happened to find her first. Once she got them home, though, she fell in love.
Squirrel care shapes June’s days for six months of each year. Squirrels have two breeding seasons and give birth typically in March and July. June cares for her furry charges from pinkie stage till release. The squirrels do not reach maturity for twelve weeks, so the end of the first season blurs into the start of the next. Seven mornings a week, June wakes up, opens the refrigerator, and reaches for the formula she has prepared the day before. While the formula is heating up on the stove, she pops some t-shirts into the drier. The formula is placed in a syringe with a nipple attached, a young squirrel is wrapped in the warm cloth, and feeding begins. She returns the squirrel to its cage, selects another, and repeats the process fourteen more times. When they are very small, they are fed six times per day. In between feedings, June rushes to run errands and complete housework. Once a week, June works as a secretary. The squirrels come along, where they are placed in a dark unused room and fed during her breaks.
As the squirrels get older, they need less frequent feedings and eventually can feed themselves. Then June stays busy marketing for vegetables, and chopping up fruits and nuts. Common foods include squash, corn, dandelion greens, yams, carrots, apples, plums, berries, and of course, nuts. Nuts of all kinds. While each squirrel seems to have its favorite vegetable, they all love nuts! Scatter a variety of foods inside a cage, and each squirrel will immediately run for a nut and commence chewing. June regularly takes walks looking for fallen branches from fruit trees for them to chew on, and also collects scattered acorns, chestnuts, and pyracantha berries.
June’s commitment to the squirrels as well as to the other members of the squirrel team and the squirrel-loving public is truly impressive. She is the coordinator for the squirrel team, calling each member to find a temporary home for every squirrel that is brought in. She meets with new team members to train them. June also contacts each person who brought in a squirrel she is caring for, to let them know how they are doing and to provide information on when and where they will be released.
“I feel honored to be featured. Besides thanking the folks from the Academy, I’d like to thank my family. For six months, they have no clean laundry!” June’s husband is very supportive, building a squirrel enclosure for their backyard. Older squirrels are placed there prior to release. Her dog, Jasmine, does her part by successfully learning to stay away from the squirrels. June also wanted to communicate that she is only one member of a team. Whether rehabbing animals or doing site maintenance, whether volunteer, staff, board or donor, we are all working together toward a common goal. She also wants to thank the squirrels, who have taught her that life is a joy. “Even though their lives could end at any minute by predation, a fall, a car, they are happy to be alive. I have never seen a depressed squirrel.”
