National Wildlife Day

It's National Wildlife Day, what better way to love animals than to volunteer with them?

If you volunteer with AEI at a wildlife rehabilitation centre you get to work with dozens, sometimes hundreds of different species. From orangutans to wild boars, these centres exist to help these sick, injured and orphaned wildlife go back home. Many of the centres work directly with the government, when animals have been confiscated from animal traffickers, the trafficked animals are sent to these centres. The rehabilitation centre helps the animals get healthy- mentally and physically and when they can, releases the animals back into the wild!

What do volunteers do?

Simply, they are hands and feet. Volunteers take care of all the supportive tasks. Any way to help the veterinarians who are busy taking care of acute and long term medical issues these animals face when they are brought to these centres. Volunteers prepare meals, bring food to the animals' enclosures, fill up water tanks and bowls, clean enclosures, clean animals, hand feed orphaned babies (once trained and given proper personal protective equipment), prepare enrichment games and activities for the animals, build hide boxes for enclosures, help with the general maintenance and up keep of the centre. Volunteers also take members of the public and tourists on short tours of education displays- when we all know better, we can do better.

 As you can tell, you are never bored when you volunteer with wildlife! 

What animals do volunteers help rehabilitate at wildlife centres? 

Literally hundreds different species, here are 10:

ocelots
elephants
toucans
hyenas
olive baboons
coatis
parrots
kangaroos
bears
tigers.

Love wildlife? Yeah, us, too. So why not volunteer at a wildlife centre this year? Our volunteers all live on site, go through extensive training, are picked up from the local airport, have their trips carbon balanced and much more. If you love animals, we will take care of the details so you can volunteer with them!

Read about our wildlife experiences and then apply! Not sure you want to go on our own? That's okay. We are running a group trip to Guatemala in February 2019. Read more about Expedition Guatemala and come help the amazing animals of Central America!