Alison Papas
Alison left corporate success to direct a wildlife sanctuary, discovering that empathy with boundaries is what sustains a life devoted to caring.
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Alison Papas spent her career in pharmaceuticals and marketing before moving to Muskoka, Ontario, where she volunteered at Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary. What started as a part-time role became a full-time calling. Today she directs advancement and communications for the sanctuary, work that fills her in a way corporate jobs never did. Every day, people thank her for what she does. She feels she is making a difference on something that matters to her deeply.
At Aspen Valley, over 1,000 animals arrive each year needing rescue, rehabilitation, and release back into the wild. The sanctuary also cares for permanent residents from roadside zoos, runs education programs, and recently created a foster program for animals displaced from facilities outside Canada while they wait for permanent homes. Alison has witnessed individual stories that stay with her: Maeve, a moose calf expelled from her mother during a highway truck collision, learning to be wild alongside Maverick, another orphaned calf. Two bear cubs found clinging to their dead mother after an illegal shooting. River otters learning to fend for themselves before soft release. Before release, orphaned animals spend months or even years in large pre-release enclosures where they practice survival skills. Bears learn to find food, peel logs for insects, and hibernate. Otters spend seasons learning to fish. The sanctuary does not release an animal until it shows genuine capability to survive.
Alison loves animals more than people, though not because she is cold. She finds in them an innocence and lack of judgment that human relationships do not offer. Working with animals has taught her that empathy without boundaries leads to burnout. The answer is knowing you cannot save them all, holding space for the ones you do help, and trusting that making a difference for one life matters. Her message to the world is simple: give wildlife distance, never feed them, never visit places that let you hold them for photos, and drive the speed limit. Let them be wild.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse & exploitation, which some listeners may find distressing.
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“This was the first job that every day, probably 6 to 12 times or more, people say thank you for what you're doing. You're doing such great work. And you don't get that if you're working at a bank or if you're working in the finance industry.”
“We need empathy with boundaries. And also we need to know that every life matters, like every animal. So, and you can't save them all.”
“I wish everyone knew that when you travel and you want to go see wildlife, that you do not go to places that let you hold the animal, you don't go to places that let you ride the animal, and don't go to places that let you have a selfie taken with the animal.”
The hero, today
Alison's empathy toward animals comes from her nature, not her upbringing. While her sisters loved the family dogs, only she felt a deep, driving care for them that shaped her entire life path. When you work with animals in their recovery, you witness their individual personalities and emotions as clearly as you would in any person. Each bear, wolf, and coyote has distinct traits, fears, and joys. Burnout happens when you try to save every animal and carry the weight of every loss. The antidote is knowing you cannot help them all, holding boundaries around your empathy, and remembering that making a difference for one life is enough. Never feed wild animals or visit places that let you hold them for photos. Bread causes malnutrition and wing deformities in swans and ducks. Feeding brings animals closer to roads and cities, where they are hit by cars or contract disease. Wild animals prefer to avoid humans. Give them distance, observe from afar, and let them find their own food and water. What feels like helping often harms them instead.
Yes. Alison Papas is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
Alison's empathy toward animals comes from her nature, not her upbringing. While her sisters loved the family dogs, only she felt a deep, driving care for them that shaped her entire life path.
When you work with animals in their recovery, you witness their individual personalities and emotions as clearly as you would in any person. Each bear, wolf, and coyote has distinct traits, fears, and joys.
Burnout happens when you try to save every animal and carry the weight of every loss. The antidote is knowing you cannot help them all, holding boundaries around your empathy, and remembering that making a difference for one life is enough.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 00:03
Welcome to another episode of Animals and Us, where we explore and honor the awesomeness of animals and our relationships with them. Today's guest is Allison Pappas from Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Ontario, Canada, a place where injured, orphaned, and displaced wild animals are given a second chance at life. Allison feels like the luckiest person in the world working to help protect them. In this episode, Allison shares what it's like working behind the scenes of one of Canada's most important wildlife sanctuaries. Hello, Allison, and welcome to Animals and Us.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 00:50
Hi there.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 00:50
What's the weather like in Canada at the moment?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 00:53
Weather? Uh, I'm looking out the window and it's beautiful. Blue skies, white clouds, and I understand it's early in the morning for you and it's the evening for me, so good morning.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 01:03
Yeah, thank you, thank you. Alison, you've said that you were born with a deep love for animals. Where do you think that comes from, nature or nurture or a combination?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 01:14
That's a really good question. Um, as a child, we had pets growing up, two long-haired dachshunds, and we all loved them, so that would be nurture. Um, but I think it's more on the nature side because I had such an incredible empathy and love for animals, um, that while my sisters loved our pets, they didn't have that same feeling that I had. So I would put it towards the nature side.
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Never feed wild animals or visit places that let you hold them for photos. Bread causes malnutrition and wing deformities in swans and ducks. Feeding brings animals closer to roads and cities, where they are hit by cars or contract disease.
This conversation includes a deep love for animals from childhood, from pharmaceuticals to wildlife work, why the sanctuary work fills her differently, what the sanctuary actually does, why beavers became her favorite and the moose calf born on a highway.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 01:41
Yes, yes, me too. I, I have it like you. I share a deep, deep love for, for animals, and my sisters didn't share it. Either. It's just something that seemed to— it seemed to be born.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 01:55
Yeah, some people are like, meh, and they're like, meh, it's sort of like the dogs, but they are not.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 02:00
Yes.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 02:01
About them. Yeah, so I was very concerned about them all the time. So yeah. Yes.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 02:06
And Alison, you began your career in the pharmaceutical industry, which is a far cry from the animal work that you do now. How did you transition from pharmaceutical work to to the work you're doing now with wildlife?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 02:19
It was actually the, the transition was geographic and career-oriented. So I was living in the city and then I moved up to Muskoka where the opportunity opened up to work at a wildlife sanctuary. And our sanctuary, Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, is in Rosseau, which is in Muskoka. And when I moved up here, I actually saw it as a wonderful place that I could volunteer. And that's where the connection was made. My, let's call it my superpower, my career, what I was all about, where I spent all my time was in marketing and communications. And I was very fortunate because that skill set is transferable to basically any industry.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 03:00
So you began as a volunteer and now you, what can you tell us about your role now?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 03:08
So yeah, I actually, it's interesting because I began as a volunteer. I wanted to become a tour guide. And I shadowed different people to become a tour guide. And then just one day I popped in the office and I spoke to the executive director and I told her, oh, well, if you need help with this and that and that and that, and it happened to be that they didn't have anyone at the time doing what I knew how to do. So very quickly they hired me on part-time and I was so thrilled about it. And then today I'm a full-time employee with the sanctuary and I'm the director of advancement and communications right now. Right.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 03:48
And what makes the job— I know you love the job from our previous discussion. What makes the job so satisfying for you?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 03:55
Oh my gosh. There are— you probably know tons of people and you may be one of them who loves animals over people. And I'm totally going to want to talk about that a lot more because it's just a crazy thing. And now I've totally forgotten your question.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 04:14
Oh, what makes the job so satisfying for you?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 04:16
What do you love about it? You know what it is? Pharmaceuticals and the other industries I was in. So I went from pharmaceuticals to having my own PR firm with different clients, not with animals. And this was the first job that every day, probably 6 to 12 times or more, people say thank you for what you're doing. You're doing such great work. Thank you. And you don't get that if you're working at a bank or if you're working in the finance industry or different industries. You just don't get that. Incredible feedback. Yeah. And you really feel like you're making a difference. And you're making a difference about something that's deep inside yourself, like in your heart. So it's fabulous. It's really fabulous.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 05:05
Can you tell us actually what the, what the mission of the sanctuary is and, and about the animals?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 05:11
And we have a tagline, keep wildlife wild. But essentially what we do is that we have 3 programs. We actually have 4 programs now. Our primary program is that every Every year we rescue, rehabilitate, and release back into the wild Ontario native species, and it can be over 1,000 animals each year come to us and need our help. So that's one program. Another program is where we have permanent wildlife residents. So these animals have come to us from roadside zoos that were shut down or they came to us, they escaped a fur farm, or they might have came to us from sort of a pet and play organization where they were purchased as kittens and people were allowed to hold them, but then when they grew up too big, you know, God forbid they grew up, they would have been discarded. So they have a forever home with us. So that's our rehab program and our permanent program. Our third program is education. So we like to educate people about living in harmony with wildlife. And our newest program is a little bit like a permanent program, but it's not permanent because it's more of a foster program. So recently we had, or we do, we had 7 lions with us. So lions are not native to Muskoka, but these lions were at a roadside zoo just outside of Ontario in Canada, and that roadside zoo was shut down. So there's a lot of paperwork involved in getting an animal across the border. So we did find a forever home for these beautiful lions in the United States where they have a lot of big cat homes, like a beautiful sanctuary for them. But the paperwork takes so long and often they don't have anywhere for these animals to go. So we've created a foster area for animals that are not necessarily native that can— they have a layover. It's a layover with us. But the sad thing is that if we weren't there, these beautiful Lions would have been euthanized. Yeah, so we're giving them, you know, it's, it's a big deal. So, and that's our new program.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 07:22
Yeah, animals in Canada are of course vastly different from our Australian animals. Can you tell us about the species of wildlife that you, you take care of?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 07:32
Yeah, so just tell me, what are your top 4 animals for you guys? I'm thinking kangaroos, koala bears. Have I got that wrong?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 07:40
They're iconic, they're known well, very, very well. We have so many Australian animals— kangaroos, koalas, dingoes, lots of reptiles, goannas, for example, emus.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 07:58
So it is very— it's a big contrast. So here I would say our iconic animals are— we have a moose, we have a beaver, we have river otters, juvotters, we have black bears. Coyotes, wolves, um, raccoons and porcupines, no possums. I could go on and on.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 08:23
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So different, so different.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 08:26
Do you have—
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 08:27
I know you, you take care of many different types of animals at the sanctuary. Do you have a favorite species that you just love hanging out with?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 08:36
It's so funny, that's such a good question, and I ask people that who come for a tour, and I say what animal did you see and what was your favorite? And everyone pretty quickly lands on a favorite. I just realized when you asked me that, that mine changes. So when I first was at the sanctuary, I loved the black bears. I just, and maybe it's because I was fascinated, for some reason I thought they were going to be bigger than they were. I mean, they're big, but they're not like grizzly bears, you know? And I love the bears. And then I changed a bit and I really had this incredible appreciation for the wolves and their pack and It was just, I was in awe of them, but I've landed right now. I've landed on the beaver. And it's interesting, people wouldn't think that because beaver is essentially just a really large rodent. But the cool thing about the beaver, I just have such an admiration for them because they are literally, they're a keystone species. So that means that if you took them out of the mix, the ecosystem would basically fall apart around them. It's like the wolf. The wolf is a keystone species. You need them. To be in that ecosystem. But what they also do is that they're like a Swiss Army knife for nature. So when you think of, I don't know if your viewers know a lot about beavers, but the beavers build— okay, so the beaver has, it's a semi-aquatic animal, so it lives in the land and it lives on the land and in the water. And in the water, it builds these dams. It's just like a big dam that prevents the water from flowing. And by building the dam, it creates a wetland area on one side. And then they have their lodge, their home, which is in this wetland area. But because they've built this dam, you've got this permanent wetland, which actually helps out. It acts as a firewall. So if there's a fire occurring, often from an aerial view, these wetland areas where beavers are, it would actually stop the fire in its tracks. So it acts as a firewall. The dam also acts as a speed bump. So if there's a flood and water's rushing down, it'll slow the water down a bit, which is cool. It also acts as a sponge with— and it holds a lot of water. So what happens then is if farmers nearby, or if there's a drought, there's a place to pull upon for water in a drought. And then another thing that's part of their Swiss Army knife is that it slows down the water, and by slowing it down, the sediment on this side drops out, which means the water further down is much cleaner and clearer. So they're like a natural filtration plant. I have to tell you something. So this is— so I always laugh because in our Ontario native species, the ones that come through our rehab program, most of them are with us for a series of months. And then some of them, like the black bears and the moose, they spend a whole year with us. So they'll overwinter with us. But the beavers, they spend 2 years with us. And I think that the beavers spend 2 years with us because they need their, um, P.Eng. They need their engineering degree to do all the things they do. So yeah, beavers. That's a long answer to your question. Beavers.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 11:56
Can you share us, share with us some stories about the the animals and their background stories and how they've— what happened to them before they arrived at your sanctuary?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 12:08
Yeah, so there are some stories that really, really stick with me. One of them was a moose, and the moose was pregnant, and while she was pregnant, she was hit by a transport truck. Her baby was expelled, and fortunately we got there in time. The ministry was there, we were there, we got there in time, and the baby is okay. And actually, this— at this day the baby is back in the wild. Um, and that little baby was called Maeve, and Maeve had another friend at the sanctuary, Maverick. It's nice when they can be in pairs because they kind of learn from each other. So, so Maeve learned to be a moose from Maverick and vice versa. Um, and Maverick had a similar instance where his mom was hit by a car and he was— had a bit of an, um, an injury, so came to us.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 12:57
But that was one story that was just So road injury, I imagine, is a significant problem for the wildlife?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 13:06
Yeah, we— one of the things we like to educate people about is driving the speed limit. It seems so simple and you feel like you're just nagging and nagging, but it's really very, very important. And that would bring me to, um, another thing is that one year I think 40 bears were hit, um, by by cars on the same strip of highway in Ontario within a similar— within one month.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 13:31
Oh no.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 13:31
And it was because bears, they— there was a shortage of berries and food that they would look for, so then they had to go out of their area, and that took them across a highway.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 13:43
Oh no.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 13:43
So sometimes you'll have 300 orphan bear cubs. Gosh. One story was that there were two bear cubs that were found and this is still— this is upsetting— suckling on their dead mom. And mom had been shot, and it was illegal to be shooting bears at that time. There is a legal bear hunt, but this was— this was not legal. The mom bear was shot. And even when it is legal, you cannot— it's absolutely illegal to shoot a mother bear that's nursing. So to find the two bear cubs with their dead mom was devastating. And to see them come in— they came in and Their claws were like the length of my fingers and they were baby cubs and they were just holding onto the crate and they just—
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 14:31
They're so traumatized.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 14:33
Terrified. So that's really hard, hard to see. I just—
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 14:40
And do they survive, those two cubs?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 14:44
Those cubs are back in the wild as well. So all these stories I've told you, all of these animals are back in the wild. I'll tell you a story that's just a bit more lighthearted, if I could. That's a story I remember too, is we have— so otters, river otters, they're the cutest and they're just so incredible to rehab. And they spend— they're with us, they come around the spring and then they spent the overwinter with us and then we release them the following spring. And we do what's called a soft release. And what that means is that we'll bring them to the side of a river. Where they will be released, and they're in a crate or they're in an enclosure, and we open the enclosure and they can go out, but we continue to put food there. So they'll come back and get food and go away, and we let— we continue to put food there until they just don't come back again. But we have a— what is it called? The webcam? Not a webcam, but the wild cameras, the cameras you put in the woods. Yeah. Um, anyways, we had a camera on on that enclosure. And this is Tuna. Tuna was this otter's name, and he came, he came back to get his blankie. Because when they're babies, it's not uncommon if they don't have other littermates with them, we often give them stuffed animals, stuffies, and they love to put the stuffies in the same— people, people's kids love stuffies, and some of them have their own blankies. And the blankie was in the enclosure. And we have on— caught on the webcam Tuna trying to squeeze his blankie from the bars. But he decided that it's probably better to choose the wild, choose the wildlife over his blankie. So he did leave blankie behind. Right.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 16:31
Oh, gorgeous. The part of the process where you release the animals back into the wild, is what's the risk of the animals not surviving and how do you manage that risk?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 16:47
Well, we don't tag them. We do, so for instance, for us to monitor them post-release, we would have to tag them. We do, we have tagged, or I should say collared, some of the moose. But we only do that in partnership with the ministry. And we do that because when you collar an animal, it's done, It's done for study purposes. So the sanctuary, we don't have the resources or the money to be collaring and tagging all the animals we release. So that's, that's unique, but we have done that. And really what we do is that we do our best to set them up for success. So before they're released, there's a lot of things we take into consideration. So if it was an— if the animal came to us as an orphan, they're released around 14, 15, I don't know if it precisely, but kind of that 14-ish, 15-ish kilometers from where they came from. If it was a grown-up animal, 1 kilometer from where they came from, so they would be in a more familiar area. We monitor the weather. So before we release them, they have to have a good window of good weather. So we don't release them in a blizzard. Yeah, yeah, we don't release them in a blizzard. And actually we don't release them after October. So when Halloween comes around October 31st, we have it, we won't be releasing any more animals. So they're all released by mid-October. So yeah, they've got weather on their side, they're released by October, and it's important to release them before the end of October because that gives them time to find a food source, find a water source, find to catch, if they cache food for the winter, find a place to hibernate, all of those things they'll need to do.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 18:33
Yeah, amazing. It must be so challenging for them because I'm thinking of the little bear cubs that you rescued from when they were tiny and you released them into the wild. They didn't have the benefit of their mother teaching them how to live in the wild.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 18:48
Although the interesting thing is that where they are here is that they have a pretty big pre-release enclosure here, and when bears are here, they, they learn how to be bears, right? So they're given the opportunity to do things that a wild bear would do. Like, we would drag in a big log that would have that they would peel back and get the bugs from underneath. We would give them the food that they would get in the wild so they know what to look for. And they have an opportunity to hibernate with us as well. So they practice that one time around.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 19:16
So they're set into a pre-release enclosure, a bit like where they do an apprenticeship of the wild.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 19:23
And importantly, we will not release them. So if we notice that they're not doing what a wild they should do, we won't be releasing them. We make sure that they tick all the boxes and they have these capabilities and abilities to survive in the wild. There's almost like a— yeah, right.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 19:42
And on the subject of survival, how cold does it get in your area? Freezing, I imagine. And how do you—
Alison Papas (Guest) · 19:51
like, -30 degrees Celsius. So it gets really cold.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 19:55
I can't comprehend that coldness. I can't comprehend it.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 19:59
Wow.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 20:00
And how do the animals survive in those brutal conditions?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 20:06
Some of them we would bring inside. Like, we have two trumpeter swans that are permanent residents. We would bring those inside. Some of them absolutely thrive in the winter. So we have an Arctic fox, Mystic. And Mystic is really— you wouldn't see Arctic foxes around here. She's probably— she's from further up north. And she absolutely loves it. In the winter she turns bright white and she's like this white fluff ball, but when the summer comes, her white fluff ball outfit turns into a darker brown and she's tiny. So her— she survives the winter by changing her coat colors, right? So that acts as a way for her to camouflage herself. And also she has a big tail, and she'll often— you'll often see her with her tail wrapped around herself like a scarf. You'd see the foxes doing that in the winter. And bears are different. So bears, what happens is that bears, um, in the winter months, there's food is scarcer. There's less food out there. So it has nothing to do with the fact that it's really cold, but because there's not a lot of food, they've eaten a lot of food leading up to, um, the cooler weather. So they've really bulked up and then they go into hibernation. And it's, they have a very long, long winter nap and then they come out again when there's more plentiful amounts of food.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 21:38
Right. It's not really, they literally do sleep, do they, in their hibernation? Wow. For how long?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 21:44
And actually that's when they have their babies. So they, they give birth to the babies January, February while they're in their, while they're napping. So I don't say it's not like a true siesta or a true nap because they've got kids They've got the babies with them. But yeah, so— Do they not need water?
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 22:04
Do they drink water during that time of hibernation?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 22:08
No, they don't. They don't. So they're in there. They might get up. So say they're out in the wild and there's people doing cutting down trees like lumber or something. They're cutting trees down for lumber purposes. The bears may wake up because of noise. Mm-hmm. They may wake up if it gets a bit warmer out. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 22:26
And is it just black bears you have, or do you have other types of bears?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 22:30
In terms of bears, we just have black bears. Right, right.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 22:34
And how dangerous are black bears? Or they're not as aggressive, are they, as grizzlies or brown bears? Is that right?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 22:44
Yeah, well, grizzlies and black bears, they're dramatically different in size. I think polar bears are bigger than grizzlies, which are bigger than black bears. So that's the visual I have in my head. And the black bears here would be about, say, I got, I'm, you know, 4 and a half, so sorry, I'm 5 feet 4, whatever. So say I were to get on my hands and knees, that's about the size of a black bear.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 23:12
Okay, quite small.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 23:14
So not that big. And I mean, they can be bigger. We do have a black bear named Sasha who's substantially bigger than that, but most of them are smaller than Sasha. So they can range.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 23:27
Right.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 23:28
So, but I was surprised when I first met them how small some of them were.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 23:32
Right. Are they threatening to people or do they prefer to just avoid people?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 23:36
I think they would prefer to avoid people. I think the challenge is when someone's hiking and they have their dog with them. And their dog sniffs and the dog comes to a bear who has cubs and is barking. And then the dog realizes that he's picked a fight with the wrong person or the wrong animal, being a bear. And when a dog picks a fight with a bear, the bear will come after them and ultimately after the person because the dog's coming back to you. So it all comes down to keeping your dog on a leash. Yeah, I'm more afraid of moose. Like, if I was out in the wild, I would be more concerned running into a moose because they're, they're huge and they can kick back, sideways, and forward. Um, they, they're big, especially in rutting season when they're mating. I would be very nervous about a moose.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 24:30
And would they try to— would their preference be to avoid a human? Rather than attack?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 24:36
Well, I was out walking my dogs in Algonquin Park, and they were not on a leash, which was a very bad thing for me to do. And there was a moose, so I slowly backed up and I kept trying to walk away from this, but it followed us for quite a distance. Whereas a bear, I bumped into a bear before where I've just turned around and left and it didn't follow me. So, and it depends. I mean, there's no hard and fast rule, but definitely give all wild animals a lot of space.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 25:09
Yes, a lot of respect. Yeah. You've mentioned earlier that many volunteers have a sense of preferring, I mean, of preferring other animals to humans. Can you explain why that's often the case?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 25:26
I'm working in the office at the sanctuary quite a bit, but I'll go out and I'll sit right next to the enclosure where the bears are and I'll sit there with my laptop and I have like my little— my coworker's a black bear or I'll have a coworker as a gray wolf and it's fascinating. But the reason I love them more than my human coworkers, oh, I love my human coworkers, I should say. They're very nice because we're all similar folks. We love the same thing. We have the same same interest. They're non-judgmental. So the animals, when I'm hanging out with them, they're not judging me. And I'm not worried if they're judging me. They're— it's a simple interaction. So it's not complicated. It's, it's a very simple interaction with them. I can sit there and talk to them. And it's— there's an innocence about them. There's this feeling of support for— it's, it just feels good. But I, you can't mix up the fact that these are not dogs, right? So, or pets. These are wild animals. So I've got this enclosure between us, but the second that enclosure comes down, I'm probably going to be feeling quite differently about this animal, um, because they're not loyal like a dog. Um, it's not like unconditional love like a dog because it's a wild animal. So it really comes down to them being non-judgmental And the innocence, they're innocent. They're just trying to get along. You know, that's how I would answer that question.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 27:01
Yes, yes. And in a previous conversation, you've mentioned that many of the other carers of the animals feel the same way.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 27:11
They do. Just today, I was in the office and someone just, we were joking, we sort of flipped the script and said that we can't stand animals, we love people. And we were all saying it totally sarcastically because we're all the animals. It's all about the end.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 27:25
Yeah, yeah. Now, and Allison, you and the other— your, the other— your co-workers have witnessed the impacts of human activity and human cruelty to animals. And I know in many cases that causes fatigue in, in people who work closely with animals. How do you, how do you and other staff manage that?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 27:49
I think we're looking at two things here. One is fatigue from having over 1,000 animals brought to you in critical condition. So it's like, think of an emergency room and there's been an airplane crash and all the people are brought into the hospital. Not all of them are going to make it. So it's very hard to see animals that don't even make it on the drive in or they don't make it for 24 hours. So it's very difficult to see casualty after casualty. So, and what happens is that it's just so overwhelming and the emotion is so great that eventually people, they kind of shut down or you have to put a wall up. And I think that there's something in between that. I think all of us have a great deal of empathy at Aspen Valley and we need to have empathy with boundaries. And also we need to know that every life matters, like every animal. So, and you can't save them all, so you need to, you need to get your mindset that you can't save them all. And there's this great— I don't know where it came from, I think I always think of it as being a pretty common story about someone on the ocean, and there were like millions of starfish or millions of something on the ocean, and this one guy is tossing one in tossing one in, and there's millions, so we can't save them all. And some guy comes up, well, you know, why are you doing that? He goes, well, it made a difference for that one. Yeah, and that's the thing. So if we focus on the fact that we made a difference for that one— like today, um, there was a little deer fawn that came in, um, and I think she's going to be okay, but she was attacked by a fisher, um, and your heart just goes out to them. So I'm just waiting for— I'm waiting to get an update on this animal right now. And I, because I met the animal and was a part of the intake, I feel very connected and I feel almost responsible. Um, and I hope she's okay. But on the flip side, one of my co-workers carried in a different deer fawn in her arms and it didn't make it for much longer after her holding the fawn. And she was devastated and she came to me in tears and I would never want anyone to lose their empathy and their compassion and their kindness. But it can become too much. It can become too much.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 30:19
Yes. Overwhelming. Overwhelming. Yeah. I remember a dear friend of mine said when I was going through a very challenging time in life, she said to me, whatever happens, Natalie, keep your heart soft and keep your heart open and keep it always keep it soft.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 30:38
Yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 30:39
And open.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 30:40
I honestly, I believe you can't go wrong with being a loving, kind, caring person and having empathy towards the world, having empathy. I mean, my empathy actually extends to trees. My empathy extends to, my empathy extends to the, you know, the ant in my house. I, it really is. It's everywhere. I draw the line when the mosquito bites me, and then I think, okay, gloves off.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 31:09
Good.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 31:09
But I think that's the only time I'm like, okay, gloves off. It's normally— it's like, okay, you deserve a chance, so I take the ant inside.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 31:20
You're talking about love, Alison, too. You have a lot of love to give everything.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 31:27
Yeah, it is. It's, it's such a I don't know. I mean, maybe I watch too many Disney movies, and you know how you— what's that movie, Antz? And there's different Disney movies where you're— the animals are personified and there's personalities given to them. But I have to tell you that our bears, they all have very distinct human personalities, and you could turn them into a caricature with their personalities. Like Sasha, our black bear, is hilarious, is such a joker, will roll a big thing down to the front and stand on it and try to stand up just to be seen by people. And then there's, um, another one of our bears that's older and very dignified and proper. And then they, they all have very unique personalities. And then a mom and baby, a mom and young bear, uh, they're like, you have a serious codependency going on there. So you see They do have human attributes.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 32:27
Yes.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 32:27
Not human, they're wild animals.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 32:29
And they are all, that just reinforces and reaffirms that they are all, each of them are individuals and what happens to them individually matters to them individually.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 32:39
And they're all sentient beings, like they all have emotions and you can see that, you can see their emotions when they're sad, when they're scared.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 32:47
Yes.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 32:47
Like you can see in their eyes the fear or the joy. I mean, Just today I was watching one of our coyotes, Tippy— no, sorry, it wasn't Tippy, it was Zoey. And Zoey was so excited because Zoey's enclosure is near our office, and we happen to have a cat in the office, and the cat was like up against the glass, and Zoey was just super excited to see— just was excited about that. So, I mean, we know why, but it was interesting to see the shift in the emotions and the excitement.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 33:24
Yeah. What advice do you— you have an education program. What advice do you give to people who feel depressed about the plight of animals in our world, particularly wildlife?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 33:37
You have to guard your heart and you have to, like your friend told you, don't let go of your heart. Keep your heart soft. But you have to have boundaries. You really have to have boundaries. I mean, that's the biggest thing. And know that you can't help every animal. I'm on a regular basis devastated by what I see. And I'm devastated by, you know, how the food industry for animals, how they treat farm animals, like how animals are treated, not all of them, but how animals are treated.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 34:13
Factory farms. The big mass-produced factory farms, yeah.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 34:17
That devastates me because I know a lot of stories of, you see stories of different pigs and cows and how they're like pets and they're just wonderful, smart creatures. And people who pet chickens. So I just want, what I would love to see is for people to always put wildlife first. So the animal's welfare needs to be first, always. And that is my dream, is that everyone in the whole world puts the animal's welfare first. And that would be something like, I wish everyone knew that when you travel and you want to go see wildlife, that you do not go to places that let you hold the animal, you don't go to places that let you ride the animal, and don't go to places that let you have a selfie taken with the animal. Because that animal after you've left, first of all, it's not really appreciating the activity.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 35:13
It's not really respecting the animal, is it?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 35:15
And then when you leave, it's going to be locked up and chained somewhere that's not very nice. It's not a life for that animal.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 35:22
Do you find, Alison, that your education programs are having impact and making a difference?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 35:28
Right now, we do a lot of— a lot of our education is when people come for a guided tour. So we have thousands of people come through the sanctuary every year, and they're taken on a guided tour, and they get to meet our permanent residents. And those permanent residents, their personal stories are told. So people are learning about roadside zoos and how that, that is not somewhere that you should visit, um, because a lot of those animals came from like cookie-cutter enclosures. They're small enclosures and their water bowl and food bowl would be right in the front, so they have to be seen by people. At our sanctuary, our animals will have an acre to themselves in the woods with tall trees and ponds and natural denning sites. They don't have to come out on the tour. There's some people, they'll go on a tour and they won't see a single— I shouldn't say this, but they won't see— well, it just means that the animals are first. It's not about— it's not— we're not a zoo. So if you came to our sanctuary, if you came like midday on a super hot day, the animals will all be in the shade. They won't be out front. If you came earlier around the time they were going to be fed, then yeah, there's more of a chance that they'll be moving around. But we're not there for the people, we're there for the animals. So they have very large space.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 36:44
Wonderful. Yeah. And I think when— if you don't assume that the animals will be present, when you, when you do encounter animals, it makes it all the more exciting and all the more special.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 37:00
It is very special when you get to see, because you're there and you're looking out into the woods into a pretty big area and you're waiting for that wolf to come down the hill.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 37:10
Yeah.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 37:11
And then when it comes down the hill, it's far more meaningful because it almost looks like a Hollywood movie because they come down like stealth-like. And yeah, or to see a black bear in the pond blowing bubbles or something is kind of fun. That's what I was today when I was there as well. I went and visited my friend Paddington the black bear, and he was in the pond just sitting there You see, they're looking around, looking around.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 37:38
What a lovely workplace you have.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 37:40
Yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 37:42
Allison, what is one, one key message you'd like to leave our audience about wildlife and, and how we should share our world with, with it?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 37:54
It comes back to what I said about always putting always putting the animal first. So wherever you are, if you're on a hike, don't go too close to the animals. Give them plenty of distance. Observe them from afar. So many things, like don't feed them. I mean, you think you're helping them, but they're going to do much better eating the foods they should eat in the wild. And in fact, The two swans we have, they have something called angel wing, which means that their arms, their wings didn't develop properly, and so they can't fly, and that's why they're with us. But they probably developed that in all likelihood from eating human bread or white bread, which a lot of people feed to ducks and things, but it's not proper nutrition, so they don't form properly. Other people who feed animals, you can't control what species are around that food area, so they'll cross-contaminate, and they're more likely to die from a disease they got at that feeding station than from starvation. Right. And then if they're— you're feeding them, they're coming closer to urban areas and they're more likely to get hit by cars. Just leave them alone.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 39:14
Yeah, yeah.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 39:15
Enjoy them.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 39:16
Let them be.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 39:16
Yeah, enjoy them. They're beautiful. Just enjoy the animals.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 39:20
Yes.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 39:21
There's so many other things like driving the speed limit, And we talked about not visiting places to get photos of selfies with tigers kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, those are just some of the things.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 39:35
Yeah, yeah, thank you. And for those in the audience who might like to support the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, how can they get in touch and what type of support would you most appreciate?
Alison Papas (Guest) · 39:49
Well, I'd love people— I would invite people to come and see, to visit our website. You can meet all of our permanent residents on the website. From abroad, but if you're in Canada, you can actually come and see them in person. Our website's www.aspenvalley.ca. That's A-S-P-E-N-valley.ca. And on that website, there's different ways you can support us. You can support us through donations. You can symbolically adopt an animal. So some of the animals I talked about today, like Sasha and Paddington and Zoe, you can adopt them. Symbolically because we're not going to send them over to you. And that's something that you can do to contribute. You can actually even volunteer abroad. I mean, I have volunteers in Toronto, so why can't I have volunteers from your neck of the woods? Because we're so remote, so I have people remotely helping me with social media or marketing or fundraising. And yeah, and then we of course have volunteers who come on site for a couple days. And actually we have every summer about 15 individuals come and they live on site, and those individuals are from around the world. So if anyone's taking a program, a veterinarian program or a wildlife program, or they just simply want to do this, they can come fly over to Canada. They could stay at the sanctuary for a minimum— it would be a minimum of 4 weeks, or some people stay 8 weeks. And they're up at the crack of dawn, and you're feeding the animals, and then you're— yeah, so it's amazing. It's a great opportunity. Lots of young people who are doing different educational programs take advantage of that to come and help us.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 41:38
That, that would be a wonderful opportunity, and I can imagine it would be a rich experience hearing the sounds of the animals as you go to sleep and waking up to the sounds of the wild animals.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 41:48
Yeah, I love hearing the wolves. So I'll hear the coyotes start up and then the wolf pack will start up and it's beautiful. And that we, we fostered a peacock for a while and the, the sound of a peacock is, it's more like something you hear if you're in Florida. So it was just so bizarre. And now that we have this foster program, you'll have out of the blue the lions roaring. It's like you're in the savannah and you've got the lions roaring.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 42:16
Yeah.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 42:16
And it's like, okay, those are my coworkers.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 42:18
Yeah. Wonderful. Alison, thank you very much for your time. I know it's late Friday afternoon for you. You probably have many other things to do now or to relax and unwind now. So thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Alison Papas (Guest) · 42:35
You're very welcome. Thank you.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 42:39
Animals and Us is a production of Kintsugi Heroes. Thank you to Xavier Rudd for his permission to use Follow the Sun as our theme music for this series. If you enjoyed this conversation, share the podcast with a friend and let us know by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to support Kintsugi Heroes and the stories we share, head to kintsugiheroes.com.au and follow the instructions to make a tax-deductible donation. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.
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