Megan Smith

This young lady comes to volunteer at the Placerita Canyon Nature Center, one of the few places where she volunteers while also handling a heavy load as a full-time student. She studies Biological and Physical sciences at College of the Canyons.

Megan Smith volunteers at the feline conservation facility in Rosemond and spends much time at the Wildlife Care of Ventura County in Simi Valley where they do rehabilitation.

Megan not only keeps on coming to the center to clean up the cages, feed the animals and prepare the food twice a week, but she also managed to find the time to put together four wonderful brochures for our visitors: “Injured and Orphaned Wildlife,” “Rattlesnakes,” “Local trail Guide” and “Sites and Trails.” Those brochures look very attractive with many color photos and are full of details and information. The project took hours of research, proofreading and struggle behind the computer while Megan also had to deal with her classes and commitments from her volunteer work.

These brochures will be very helpful for our visitors who always have so many questions, especially at this time of the year when baby animals are found. We get many phone calls the center asking how to help the babies birds fallen from the nest or baby rabbits caught by the cat, where can they be brought and what steps should be taken to take care of them. The brochures have all of those details. Also, the rattlesnake season is starting, so one of the brochures deals with this topic; they will be perfect teaching tools.

Visitors unfamiliar with our trails can have maps now with description of the trails, the number of miles they are and the kind of environment they will find so that is very helpful.

Thanks to Megan for all she does at the Placerita Canyon Nature Center.

This article originally appeared in the May-June 2012 edition of The Rattler, the newsletter of the Placerita Canyon Nature Center Associates. The Nature Center is located at 19152 Placerita Canyon Road, Newhall. For information or to volunteer, visit www.Placerita.org. Join the PCNCA Facebook group here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/pcnca.