2008 Woodie Awards
Jan Plan 2007 profiles
Chelsea Eakin
Issue date: 2/9/07 Section: News & Features
EMILY McCLURE '07
After watching "Growing up Baboon," a one-hour spot on Animal Planet featuring C.A.R.E., a wildlife rehabilitation facility in South Africa, Emily Mcclure '07 was inspired to volunteer. Over January Mcclure traveled to Phalaborwa, South Africa to work with C.A.R.E., a center dedicated to caring and protecting injured and orphaned indigenous wild animals.
"While I was there I cared for baby chacma baboons by playing with them, supervising their playtime with other baboons, and feeding them," she said. "I even spent an entire day driving to the Botswana border and back to rescue a baby baboon, which ended up becoming my adopted child. I named her Maida. She was too small to sleep or function during the day on her own, so she slept in the bed with me and clung to me during the day."
C.A.R.E. was founded in 1989 by Rita Miljo, because "baboons are seen as vermin in all the places that they naturally live," said Mcclure. "Anyone is allowed to shoot them any time as one would be allowed to shoot at rats." The majority of the animals that Miljo rescues at the facility are baby baboons that "need constant attention from a human adopted mother, which is where the volunteers come in," said Mcclure. "Rita's eventual goal is to release as many healthy troops and baboons as possible back into the wild. The center always needs more supplies such as bottles, teats, blankets, stuffed animals, cage building supplies, and even food."
Mcclure's account of the many animals she met while volunteering sounded like a description of people she had befriended. "It is impossible to describe the attachment I felt for all of the baboons even after my short stay. I learned to speak baboon - to flash, present, lip smack, and even a play face."
You can visit C.A.R.E.'s website at www.primatecare.org.za.
AMANDA VICKERSON '07
Rather than using January as an excuse to run off to a foreign country, Amanda Vickerson '07 chose to spend the month close to home. Vickerson, a native Mainer from Scarborough, interned at the Maine State Museum in Augusta helping research for an upcoming exhibit entitled "At Home in Maine."
After watching "Growing up Baboon," a one-hour spot on Animal Planet featuring C.A.R.E., a wildlife rehabilitation facility in South Africa, Emily Mcclure '07 was inspired to volunteer. Over January Mcclure traveled to Phalaborwa, South Africa to work with C.A.R.E., a center dedicated to caring and protecting injured and orphaned indigenous wild animals.
"While I was there I cared for baby chacma baboons by playing with them, supervising their playtime with other baboons, and feeding them," she said. "I even spent an entire day driving to the Botswana border and back to rescue a baby baboon, which ended up becoming my adopted child. I named her Maida. She was too small to sleep or function during the day on her own, so she slept in the bed with me and clung to me during the day."
C.A.R.E. was founded in 1989 by Rita Miljo, because "baboons are seen as vermin in all the places that they naturally live," said Mcclure. "Anyone is allowed to shoot them any time as one would be allowed to shoot at rats." The majority of the animals that Miljo rescues at the facility are baby baboons that "need constant attention from a human adopted mother, which is where the volunteers come in," said Mcclure. "Rita's eventual goal is to release as many healthy troops and baboons as possible back into the wild. The center always needs more supplies such as bottles, teats, blankets, stuffed animals, cage building supplies, and even food."
Mcclure's account of the many animals she met while volunteering sounded like a description of people she had befriended. "It is impossible to describe the attachment I felt for all of the baboons even after my short stay. I learned to speak baboon - to flash, present, lip smack, and even a play face."
You can visit C.A.R.E.'s website at www.primatecare.org.za.
AMANDA VICKERSON '07
Rather than using January as an excuse to run off to a foreign country, Amanda Vickerson '07 chose to spend the month close to home. Vickerson, a native Mainer from Scarborough, interned at the Maine State Museum in Augusta helping research for an upcoming exhibit entitled "At Home in Maine."
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