Care for AWARE's Ambassador Animals

Hi AWARE supporters,

The last few months have brought some changes to our group of beloved AWARE Ambassadors. First, our beloved Ambassador corn snake Legs passed away at the ripe old approximate age of 15 years- quite old for a corn snake. She began experiencing symptoms of arthritis last year, and found relief from those symptoms through a laser therapy treatment provided by our friends at For Pets' Sake in North Decatur. Sadly though, early this year she developed a cancerous tumor on one of her kidneys. Surgery removed as much of it as possible, but after a few months it came back in an inoperable form. She will be missed by the thousands of loves she touched on the hundreds of AWARE programs she participated in. Everyone here thanks you for helping her have the wonderful impact she had on so many people who met her!

On a happier note, we have two new Ambassadors- Velcro, an American crow, and Jeffery, a black king snake. Velcro is non-releasable due to a wing injury, and Jeffery due to repeated bouts with hospital treatment that have left him unable to fend for himself outdoors. Both are settling in to their new accomodations at AWARE. Velcro in particular is learning to be glove trained so he can start attending programs and festivals.

And finally, our ball python Andrew is getting a new home! Two of our volunteer craftsmen are building it for him out of recycled wood and metal with supplies your donations helped pay for. As always, thank you for making it possible for us to keep caring for our Ambassadors and bringing them to the public to teach about habitat preservation and peaceful coexistence!

Hi AWARE/GlobalGiving Donors,

Your donations to AWARE through GlobalGiving have continued to make it possible for us to save lives, improve the quality of life of our ambassadors, and educate ever more people about the importance of peaceful coexistence with our wild neighbors.  Here are some highlights from the last few months!

- Over the winter, we took in a young ball python that had been stuck in shoebox when his owner went to college and left him behind. For two months, he was forgotten- no food, no water, no light, just solitary confinement. When the owner's parents finally opened the shoebox and saw him one day, he had shrunk to the point that we could see the outline of his skeleton poking through his scales.

Your donations made it possible for us to accept young Andrew Snecklace (our name for him) as our newest ambassador. Though we don't normally take non-native species as ambassadors, we have long wanted a non-native species that we could allow children to touch, and Andrew was in such desperate need that we very much wanted to help him out. Fortunately, he has quickly regained his health and strength in our care. Today, he's muscular, active, and attending school programs to help teach kids about wildlife several times a week.

- We also use your donations for small projects to improve the quality of life of our ambassadors. For example, with a few extra dollars from your donations to spend on materials, a volunteer was able to build a new ramp/runway for our ambassador skunks, Marc Anthony and Cleopatra. Cleo in particular has really taken to the new structure, and regularly runs up the ramp to curl up in the house at the top in the daytime before running down again for dinner.

- And in a larger sense, your donations have helped us expand our capacity to deliver educational content to schools and other groups this year. We're currently at about a 40% increase over last year's program delivery, meaning we've been able to teach 40% more people how to make the world a safer place for the wildlife with whom we share our world. 

So thank you for continuing to support our Ambassador Care project! We look forward to continuing to build on the foundation you are all laying for us in the days and months to come!