MASSILLON, Ohio — Shandy Myers has dedicated over 15,000 hours and rehabilitated hundreds of animals by volunteering for Stark Parks’ Wildlife Conservation Center over the last 12 years.
Caring for injured and abandoned wildlife, especially Virginia opossums, has become a lifestyle. From the considerable home care center her husband Jay built her to her decal-covered car and “OPOSSUM” license plate, Shandy’s passion for her work is evident in every aspect of her life.
Shandy received Stark Parks’ Lifetime Achievement Award at its annual volunteer recognition dinner last fall for her commitment, compassion and “willingness to help at any time,” according to Vanessa Shanower, Stark Parks Wildlife Rehabilitation Specialist.
“We have a lot of volunteers, and we appreciate all of them. But we have few volunteers like Shandy, who are willing to just do anything that you need done, whenever you need it done, and you can’t replace that,” Shanower said.
A couple of hours on Sunday
Finishing up her business degree, Shandy was reluctant to commit to volunteering when her friend Jen Quartz first asked her to come to the Wildlife Conservation Center with her on Sundays. However, Quartz had plenty of opportunities to convince Shandy as their sons played baseball together for the Fabulous Phillies through the Jackson Baseball Association.
“She’s very dedicated, a huge animal person, lots of energy, and the more we talked about it, the more she became involved,” Quartz said. “And I roped her in.”
As her sons, Christopher and Dylan, left baseball behind and graduated high school, the idea became more alluring. Late in the summer of 2013, Shandy started volunteering at the Wildlife Conservation Center.
“I honestly thought it was just gonna be volunteering for a couple hours on Sundays, and I’m gonna deal with all of the animals. I’m gonna do whatever they need me to do, and I’m gonna do it for two hours a week,” Shandy said.
Shandy didn’t anticipate falling in love with a sweet opossum named Olivia. While she was cleaning and feeding on Sundays, Olivia would curl up and sleep in the hood of her hoodie.
The following March Shandy fostered her first opossums, Jack and Diane, and once again found herself falling in love. Considered her greatest success, Diane still holds a special place in Shandy’s heart. When Shandy brought her home, Diane suffered from an unknown skin ailment that caused bald patches, and it was uncertain whether she would survive.
“She was miserable, and everybody was telling me, they’re like, ‘It’s OK if she doesn’t make it.’ … I released her big, bigger than Schmidt (a current Stark Parks animal ambassador), hair everywhere. She’s gorgeous,” Shandy said.
Shandy increased Diane’s protein intake using a high-calorie supplement and groomed her coat with a flea comb and vitamin E oil until the bald patches disappeared. She kept Diane three weeks longer than her brother and let her go on her property at 4and a half months old to make sure she would thrive. Healthy and able, Diane moved on that winter.
“They’re amazing creatures, and what they do for conservation is just insane. I’ve always been rooting for the underdog since I was little, and that’s what possums are. They are the underdog,” Shandy said.
A small table in the basement
Jay’s rule about having animals in the house was always a cat, a dog and some kind of small animal — a guinea pig, crab or something similar. He, too, expected his wife’s volunteer work to be limited to Sundays for a couple of hours.
When it became clear that wasn’t the case, he doubled down, building her an ever-expanding home care center in their basement, offering endless support and becoming a volunteer himself last year.
“I went from rolling my eyes to, well, I guess it’s my hobby now, too,” Jay said.
Shandy’s birthday and her and Jay’s anniversary fall during the same week. One year when Jay asked her what she wanted for her “birthaversary,” she requested a dumpster. As a family, the Myerses began repurposing the dark cellar that housed an accumulation of their long-forgotten belongings.
Then, a small table in the basement became an 8-foot workbench that Jay built his wife. Before long he added kitchen cabinets and shelves and gave her his workbench on the other side of the room. They acquired cages through the wildlife center and donations, and Jay built tables for them. He bought a couple of large toolboxes for Shandy’s feeding tubes, nipples and other supplies. A utility sink, food prep table, deep freezer and refrigerator, “critter fridge,” have also been dedicated to their wildlife care area. They have 40 to 50 cages and hutches, with 15 outside to prepare animals for release, and 15 animal carriers stored in their shed. Jay even bought Shandy a small generator for her car, so she can plug in heating pads and care for animals on the go.
“I just like to help her out. And, you know, some of the women at the center think I’m just such a saint that I do, but I’m just like, ‘No, I just like to see her happy, and this makes her happy, so I’m willing to help her,’” Jay said.
Incidentally, Jay’s help isn’t limited to being the architect of his wife’s animal care facilities. He’s transported animals to and from the Wildlife Conservation Center. Before Shandy started working from home during the COVID-19 quarantine, he brought baby animals to her office during her lunch break so she could feed them in the parking lot. He’s comforted her at 2 a.m. as she’s cried over some of her more hopeless cases, and woken her up when she’s fallen asleep downstairs.
“He bought into it immediately because that’s the kind of guy he is … he’s a good one. I could not do it without him, or my boys,” Shandy said.
Like their father, Christopher and Dylan also bought into their mom’s new hobby by helping pick up, transport and set up hutches that have been donated over the years.
“They see her happy, and they go along with it because of the fact that it makes her happy,” Jay said.
Commitment to care
Shandy volunteers between 1,000 and 1,500 hours every year, working 50 to 60 hours a week during the spring and summer — the busiest time of year for wildlife rehabilitation. She averages about 100 opossums, 60 to 70 squirrels and a handful of skunks every year. The maximum number of animals she has taken care of at one time included 50 opossums, 20 squirrels and three skunks. Feedings occur every 2 hours, eight times a day, and can be completed as quickly as 10 to 15 minutes or take as long as 2 hours.
Working from home for Synchrony Financial, she’s able to tailor her work schedule to her foster animals’ feeding schedule. She takes breaks every 2 hours, feeding during her first break, feeding and cleaning during her lunch break and feeding again during her last break. During the chaotic height of baby season, when she’s finished with her brood at home, she frequently stops by the Wildlife Conservation Center to help out there, too.
“It’s her willingness to help, and her willingness to sacrifice her own time for animals that you just don’t see a lot nowadays,” Stark Parks’ Shanower said.
With a 95% release rate in 2023, Shandy’s home care and transition routine has proven to be successful. She’s a loving mother to all her fosters until they’re big enough to move outside. Then, Jay prepares them to be released.
“You don’t want to handle them or love on them too much because then they can’t survive once you release them, or they’re too familiar with people, which people aren’t always safe for animals,” Shandy said.
Because she’s had so much success, Shandy has started challenging herself to care for smaller and smaller opossums each year. Babies at 30 grams and above have the highest success rate for rehabilitation. Last year, she attempted to care for babies that weighed around 12 grams but realized a couple of days in that they weren’t thriving and felt it would be more humane to take them back to the wildlife center to have them put down. Despite being unsuccessful, she plans to try again this year.
“Honestly, even if I have 1,000, if I can release one, I’m happy,” she said.
Shandy’s always on the clock when it comes to caring for opossums. She frequently receives calls from friends, family and coworkers who come across dead ones on the road. Oftentimes, when the individual who discovered it is too afraid to investigate, her response is, “Just bring the whole thing over.”
“I understand if you’re not comfortable digging through the pouch of a possum. I totally get that. Like, that’s kind of weird if you’re not used to that,” Shandy said.
Fortunately, Shandy is very comfortable with what’s weird for others when it comes to opossums. There are no limits to her love for the marsupial. She attends the annual Ohio Wildlife Rehab Association Conference at least every other year and takes the remedial opossum class every time just to make sure she doesn’t miss out on a new tidbit of information.
She keeps expanding her skillset into new areas, like becoming a euthanasia tech. She invests in the education of others, teaching newer volunteers how to feed young opossums and helping with educational programs for children at the Wildlife Conservation Center. When asked how her commitment works around the rest of her life, without hesitation, she replied, “This is my life.”
“She has a big heart, and I think she sees an opportunity to make some kind of difference in the world,” Jay said.
How to help
Volunteer via your local park district.
Donate:
- Baby blankets
- Towels
- Dawn dish soap
- Paper towels
- Kleenex
This is a great article that helps readers see the importance of wild animals like the opossum.
Known as the garbage men of the world,they eat whatever they find,cleaning up areas as they go
about their business.Virtually immune to rabies,an eater of deer ticks,
who could not love such an animal? Even their unkempt coat can cause we humans to relate to “that bad hair day”.I had the privilege of tossing a whole apple to an opossum one early morning,and watched him/her grab the apple and make a quick get away.What a great start to the day.
When safe to do so,checking the pockets of opossums that did not make it across the road adds to taking responsibility for God’s Creation.
The volunteer has found a true labor of love,the reward of doing the right thing.
I imagine the joy and some sadness when the babies are released.Maybe each of us will watch one from afar
and rejoice,possibly that the one you see was lovingly cared for by Shandy Myers.Gotta love this article’s contents,and the lowly,incredibly adorable toothy Opossum!