Rehabilitation Center!!!!!

So although we work at the conservation part of Albufera, working with building structures to provide resting grounds for birds and protection for natural plant species, we also get to go on side trips to other parts of the park. This particular trip, also two weeks ago, was a trip across the lake to Albufara's rehabilitation center. It is a government run facility so students are not allowed to volunteer there but we got to visit. At the center they take in injured birds, wildlife, turtles and invasive species like the american florida turtle and raccoons, which are unfortunately terminated. :( Raccoons reek havoc upon local species by eating eggs of the young and are a huge problem in Europe. They have bounties on them, dead or alive, and the alive ones soon end up dead. :(   weird to think what is so cute and innocent in the U.S. could be so destructive elsewhere.
While there, we saw many turtles...which a lot have been released into the wild by previous owners...who also were idiots and fed them meat instead of vegetables. ...this results in the turtles refusing to go back to eating vegetables, ... meaning lots of dead baby chickens being consumed by the turtles. These same baby chickens are also the favorite meals of the eagles and other large birds kept in captivity. The end of our trip was met with a terrible fate, having two of the three birds brought in getting euthanized. (The really cute fluffy owl was the survivor!!!) One bird, with a badly broken wing happens to be a swallow that is very important to the environment around here. They also can't land on the ground due to their short legs; they cannot resume liftoff from there. A broken wing is a death sentence since they spend their lives in constant flight, eating, sleeping, mating, all while in flight. We spent a couple hours there and took many pictures, several being very endangered species, so it was a pretty cool experience (:

-Rita, over and out!