Balsam Mountain Trust executive director Michael Skinner shows the 4-year old barn owl Luna. This will be one of the animals the volunteers will work with. Photo by Tyler Davis.
Animals like Luna, the barn owl, and Hope, the bald eagle, need your help.
The Balsam Mountain Trust needs volunteers to take care of wildlife in their care. Michael Skinner, executive director of the Trust, said that the program would like 14 volunteers, two for every day of the week. Per their website, volunteers must be aged 16 or older and must be willing to work a three hour shift every week for at least six months. Potential volunteers need a current tetanus shot and references.
Luna is a 4-year-old barn owl. She hatched on April 24, 2014 and was raised in captivity. Hope, a bald eagle, was hatched in 2010 and was given to the Trust after a gunshot wound left her flightless.
Hope and Luna aren’t the only animals Balsam Mountain Trust cares for. Along with other birds of prey like a kestrel and screech owl, the Trust has snakes, an alligator and an opossum. Each animal is an ambassador, used to give life to the Trusts’s educational programs.
Volunteers will prepare diets for the animals, clean their habitats and assist in training and exercise. Volunteers may also be approved to glove-handle the Trust’s birds of prey.
According to Bethany Sheffer, a former service member for the Trust, there are five animal care volunteers working as of Sunday, Sep. 30. All five are students at Western Carolina University. While most volunteers are from environmental studies and related majors, anyone interested is welcome.
“We love the opportunity to share our knowledge- and vice versa,” Skinner said about the volunteer opportunity.
Balsam Mountain Trust is a nonprofit organization founded in 2000 by the Balsam Mountain Preserve Company LLC to inventory and manage the Preserve’s land, provide conservation education programming for Preserve members and the public, consult with homeowners and provide regional environmental leadership. They’ve since expanded their reach to becoming the regional leaders in conservation education. Per their website:
“The Balsam Mountain Trust inspires people to be responsible stewards of the natural and cultural resources of the southern Blue Ridge Mountains through education and conservation leadership.”
Anyone interested in volunteering should call Education Directors Rose Wall and Jen Knight at 828-631-1061 or email them at education@bmtrust.org.
