Hello everyone.  Welcome back to Animal Wonders.  It's a beautiful day here.  I'm Jessi, this is Cheeks the dwarf rabbit.  He's been extra cuddly lately, so he's going to join us today.  

First off, I wanna tell you how much your health and happiness means to me.  However far apart we are, we're truly all in this together.  I hope that you're able to find joy and love and family and friends and animal companions in whatever ways you can.  

So things are a bit different for the channel and for filming right now.  Maia is no longer coming out, so if this looks different or the audio's off, you know who to blame.  Oh my goodness, Cheeks, you give me all the love.  Look at that!  

We do have a few videos that we filmed before we made this change, so Taylor will be hosting a few videos from off-site, and we're also going to be changing the upload schedule a little bit.  We're going to start rolling out two videos a week.  One of them will be similar to what we normally do, and the other will be a little less structured, maybe me just featuring an animal or showcasing something interesting that's happening at the moment.

I know I'm feeling the need to reach out and connect a bit more and I'm really missing all the programs we're used to doing in the spring, which is why I wanted to bring you more videos, so this is going to be a unique challenge.  I hope you'll join me for this adventure and stay tuned for updates on what's going on around here.

(Intro)

So the world is going through some really big changes and maybe your routine has been completely mixed about, but for the animals at Animal Wonders, life goes on as usual.  This is Steve the cockatiel and he probably hasn't noticed that anything is different.  He still gets his daily meals, playtime, and singing sessions.  

One of the biggest changes is that our interns and volunteers are no longer coming out and most of our staff is working remotely.  While working remotely works for many kinds of jobs, that's just not possible for animal care.  We can't really feed and clean Steve or Kemosabe with just a video conference call.  I mean, we could try, but Kemosabe would probably just try and eat the computer or pee on it.

This time has been really challenging for many larger animal facilities like zoos and aquariums or rescue and rehabilitation centers that rely on big teams.  Speaking of, I'd like to take a moment to send my appreciation to all those in animal care that are risking their health to ensure all the animals under their watch are receiving everything they need and more.  Thank you zookeepers, wildlife rehabilitators, rescuers, and also thank you to all of those who are making sure their pets at home are smothered with love and attention during this time.  Keep being awesome and know that you are appreciated.

For Animal Wonders, we're in a unique situation, because we're located on our family's property, so Augusto and I have taken over 100% of feeding, cleaning, and enrichment while also being able to shelter in place and stay completely quarantined.  I am so grateful to not have to worry about the well-being of the animals.  I'm here for them and we've got this.

Now, usually we're very busy during the spring semester with school programs and other public presentations, so we absolutely need our volunteers and interns and other animal keepers to help us manage all of the animal daily tasks, but we've been able to go back to basics because all of our public programs have been canceled or postponed.  

When we first started 12 years ago, it was just me and Augusto holding down the fort, so it's a bit like old times.  There were different challenges then and we do have quite a few more animals now than we did then, but together, we can manage it.  We're also getting some special help from our kiddos who are now home 24/7.  

Now, because most of our school programs and community events have been canceled, we are concerned about how this is affecting how much money we're able to bring in to help care for the animals, which means we could really use your help.  Like many other organizations, we have lost a significant amount of our funding, which makes us even more grateful to our awesome Patrons on Patreon who are our biggest supporters right now and help us keep this channel going and our amazing individual donors who help us feed the animals and get them the vet care they need to live a happy and healthy life.  Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.  You're amazing, and if you would like to help us as well, there are two options.  

First option is you can head on over to patreon.com/animalwonders and become a Patron with a monthly pledge.  This will support the continued production of our channel, support payroll for our employees, and provide free programming for families, schools, and individuals around the world.  The funds that go through Patreon are split with our production company Complexly, who edits all of our videos and under normal circumstances, they handle directing, filming, lighting, and audio, so Maia, who is our director from Complexly, does a ton for us.

The second option is to donate directly to Animal Wonders through our website animalwonders.org.  This donation supports animal care, like food, enrichment, vet care, cleaning supplies, and keeper payroll.  This option is tax deductible, because we are a non-profit organization.  You can also designate what you'd like your donation to go toward.  For example, you could ask that we use it to feed the parrots or to help cover Kemosabe's vet bills or whatever you'd like, so thank you for considering helping us during this challenging time.  

I put the links to Patreon and donating directly in the description below and please know that no matter what happens, the animals will be cared for.  If you have any questions for me about this or about anything, go ahead and leave them in the comments below or you can send us an email to animalwonders@email.com.  

So I also wanted to take this time to share with you something that happened that was really cool.  Luka, our young raven that we recently rescued, I heard him talking.  He wasn't just doing his normal cawing and vocalizations, he was actually making a noise that sounded like a robot human's voice.  It was super weird and kinda cute.  

Now, our other ravens, Rook and Maav, they do their fair share of vocalizations, too, but they don't really mimic us.  They've actually said things that sound like 'hi' and 'hello' and I caught it on video so here's that video.

(Rook & Maav saying 'hello')

So Rook and Maav, they make these cute little noises back and forth, but Luka was full on like, mumbling and talking to himself like a robot.  I hope I can catch it on video so I can share it with you because it was really weird, and I hope he continues to do it because I think that would be a really fun thing to work on training in the future.  

So in summary to this very first video in this style, life goes on for the animals.  As long as they have good food, good company, and plenty of enrichment, the are happy and content, and they have none of the stress that we might be feeling.  

Thank you for joining us.  I hope you have a wonderful day and I will see you very soon.

(Endscreen/Credits)