Precious life and incredible flight Brittney Yohannes spends her days using her drive to preserve the natural world to mobilize volunteers.
Lilly th e co ckatie l, p erc h ed o n Yo h a n n es’ f i n g er, sprea ds h e r win gs i n p rep a rat i o n to f l y to h er cag e. | P h oto by H a n n ah Ho b us By Rachel Blood
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rittney Yohannes trekked through the undeveloped marshland of Lino Lakes armed only with a field guide and a curiosity about the world. At only six years old, her heart broke at the sight of a Canada Goose limping through her backyard. After naming the bird Hobbles, Yohannes ran inside to tell her mom about the animal in need of help. “What can we do?” she asked. “Nothing, really,” her mom shrugged. Yohannes didn’t know of any rehabilitation programs that could help the bird. Yohannes was helpless. She had to leave it. So she dedicated the rest of her life to making sure that never happened again, the decision serving as the take off point of a flight through loss and life. Yohannes lives with her husband, Abdiwak Yohannes, and two-month old daughter, Soliliya, but those aren’t the only heartbeats under her roof. Inside, the chatter of Yohannes’ three adopted birds– two cockatiels and a little brown finch– fill the air. The muted bawks and clucks of three chickens join the noise from the backyard. The bars of cages rattle as the birds fly around and land on top of them. With a high-pitched whistle, they move to Yohannes’ finger and peck at millet– seeds on a stick, their favorite treat. For Yohannes, the wild doesn’t stop at the front door. Yohannes is the kind of woman who never leaves the sounds of fluttering wings and irritated squeaks. These noises are the soundtrack of her life. Tomorrow, she will rise and drive to Roseville’s Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, where hundreds of birds and deer and rodents and all
sorts of wild animals recover before placement or release into the wild. As a kid, Yohannes sat perched on her kitchen counter with a journal in her lap, scrawling “Views From the Window” as she observed the natural world that she so loved. Inside and outdoors, Yohannes extensively observed every bird that nested in her yard, along with the amounts and types of food in each backyard bird feeder. That book has grown into a collection of field guides and observation journals lining a birdhouse-topped shelf in a room of her home next to two cages and a tree Harriet the cockatiel likes to climb. The room is exactly the sort that Yohannes would have dreamed of a child – a living, breathing aviary. “I felt really connected to the seasonal changes and when [the animals] would nest and what they would do over the winter,” Yohannes said. “I so appreciate growing up that way because I feel like it really translated into my love for wildlife that I have now.” Yohannes has served as Volunteer Programs Director at the WRC for one year. After interning for the WRC while studying at Bethel in 2010, she spent 2011 to 2013 on staff there rehabilitating birds. The most notable WRC resident during her time as an intern was a pileated woodpecker who had been hit by a car and suffered severe neurological trauma. Every day, Yohannes walked into the red-paneled building across the street from Muriel Sahlin Arboretum worried that the woodpecker hadn’t made it through the night. Every day, he surprised her. She fed him and cleaned his cage, and over the course of several weeks, she watched him regain his balance,
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relearn to forage for food and fly again. Although the woodpecker wasn’t able to navigate the air well enough to be released into the wild, he was placed in the Minnesota Zoo in an enclosure he could navigate freely. WRC employees and volunteers refrain from naming wild creatures in an effort to not become overly attached or breach the line between wild and domestic. The zoo gave the pileated woodpecker a name, but Yohannes can’t quite recall what it is. “That was the patient that made the biggest mark on my life, just seeing how he could turn around from really horrible circumstances,” Yohannes said. “We were able to give him a second shot at life.” Although Yohannes loves all wildlife, birds hold a special place in her heart. “I think the fact that birds can fly is incredibly special,” she said. “I think we’re all, as humans, a little bit jealous of that. We create superheroes who can fly, and I think everyone kind of envies that a little bit. The perspective on the world that they must get … is just incredible to me.” Yohannes also finds the resilience of avian life inspiring. Black capped chickadees survive harsh Minnesota winters with nothing but the feathers on their wings, and Yohannes respects that. Following her time at the WRC, she attended graduate school at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities for a master’s degree in conservation biology. After a number of other environmental and animal-related jobs, Yohannes returned to the WRC last year. With no experience managing people, she took on a job where she was responsible for 30 interns and several hundred volunteers.
