Editor's Note: During the 2002 Back to the Wild gala event,
Oleg Cassini graciously established Cassini Animal
Rehabilitation Education (C.A.R.E.) Fund, from which each year
a student will be awarded money to support his or her studies
of wildlife rehabilitation and humane stewardship for wildlife
with the Cape Wildlife Center. The latest recipient, then a
senior at Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina, was
Shannon Hatmaker. She wrote this essay after completing an
externship at the Cape Wildlife Center in the summer of
2003.
"[Animals] are not brethren, they are not underlings; they
are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life
and time."
—Henry Beston
Henry Beston's quote doesn't just describe the philosophy
that I learned as a student at the Cape Wildlife Center, it
describes what I have believed in my whole life. Even as a
child, I recognized the beauty of nature and animals. I
gradually began to realize the hardships and injustices humans
create for animals. At the age of ten, I made one of the
biggest and easiest decisions of my life. I vowed to not eat
animal flesh or purchase products made from animal flesh.
Two years later, I started volunteering at the Chattanooga
Nature Center, where I learned about both rehabilitation and
conservation of wildlife. As I grew, so did my appreciation of
the environment and wildlife. As a high school student, I
volunteered for an environmental lawyer who worked for the
National Audubon Society. While there, I was allowed to
coordinate nature hikes for National Migratory Bird Week and
distribute information on how to best view and protect local
passerines in east Tennessee. As the President of the Ecology
Club in high school, I also organized monthly clean-up dates of
the wetland near our campus. We also planted new trees, made
blue bird houses, and put out songbird feeders around
campus.
My animal rights view really developed once I formed my
opinions on animals in entertainment and sport. When I was
seventeen, I quietly protested a circus event and a rodeo show
that had hundreds of attendees. My intention was not to preach,
but to teach. I handed out fliers that gave more information
abut how the animals were being treated.
I am now the president of the Clemson Animal Welfare
Society. Last year we toured a local zoo and an animal research
laboratory and offered suggestions to help improve the quality
of life of the animals confined there. We raised money to go to
three local animal shelters. We held a food drive at the
grocery store and on campus to collect animal food and supplies
for the shelters and a wildlife rehabilitation center. We also
helped the Concerned Citizens for Animals with their Feral Cat
Program. Along with the club Tigers for Tigers, we raised money
to go to a program that is trying to establish a national tiger
conservation area in northern India.
As a 20-year-old college student, I have many hobbies and
passions. But my true love will always be my commitment to
protecting and understanding animals. Regardless of my career,
I plan to always make an effort to support the care of wildlife
and education of the public about animals' plight. I do not
know how big of a difference one person can make, but I hope I
can at least say that I spent my life trying to make a
change.
