To the Rescue

If you’ve got a little animal lover or environmentalist on your hands, plan a trip to the Visitor Education Center at the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW) in Sanibel, Florida.

 

For years CROW has been rescuing and treating injured animals in the Sanibel area. Its hospital facilities are off-limits to the general public, but the education center gives visitors young and old a glimpse of the important work the organization is doing.

 

Kids get plenty of opportunities to play vet as they make their way through the site’s interactive exhibits. Actual case files are used to show what happens after an animal gets hit by a car or swallows something it shouldn’t. (Some of the photos can be a little gruesome, so you might want to preview them first if you have a sensitive or easily grossed-out kiddo.) Young ones can assess injuries, check out the tools used to treat them, and see if they would have made the same calls the doctors did.

 

Live video feeds, frequent talks, and a new Animal Ambassador program help further connect visitors with the work done at the clinic and the animals who are there temporarily or, in some cases, permanently due to injuries that are too severe for release back into the wild. Guests also learn what they can do to protect the local animal population from those kinds of injuries in the first place.

 

Sanibel, in general, is a great place to take little nature lovers for the day or weekend. The conservation-minded island is home to many parks and preserves, great beaches, and outfitters who can help people explore Sanibel’s wild side. Read more about ways kids can enjoy and learn about the great outdoors on Sanibel and neighboring Captiva Island in this story I wrote for Times of the Islands magazine.