Off Season Warriors
Ahoy! And welcome aboard! Ever heard of the term off-season warriors? These are the people who don’t leave the islands during the slow season because the work they do is 24/7. Right now the Virgin Islands are entering prime hurricane season, so tourists are down to a trickle compared to a few months ago, and lots of businesses are slowing down, taking time to make repairs or even taking time off. But off-season warriors don’t have that luxury. There are too many warriors to highlight in one blog, so we’ve chosen one of our own to introduce to everyone – Brianna Burks!
Brianna and Matt
While Brianna juggles various duties as part of the Stormy Pirates team, she’s also a founding member of the nonprofit Virgin Islands Spay and Neuter (VISN), an organization founded to improve the health and welfare of animals in the US Virgin Islands by providing accessible and affordable spay and neuter clinics, preventative healthcare services and community support programs.
“We came together and made it happen in December of last year, so we’re pretty new,” she says, adding “We got our domestic paperwork in December on the 15th and ran a clinic on the 17th. It’s an all-volunteer organization and our focus is affordable, accessible and high-quality veterinary care.”
With several months to go before completing its first year of operations, VISN has already provided care to nearly 300 animals. Each monthly clinic, held at Canines, Cats & Critters Veterinarian Clinic on the east end of St. Thomas, not only offers spay and neuter services but also provides low-cost vaccinations, microchipping, and when appropriate, deworming and anti-parasite preventative care.
Burks, who lives on St. Thomas, grew up in Central California and came to the territory to finish her degree at the University of the Virgin Islands. But she never left! Recently celebrating her 15th year on island, she clearly has found her home and calling in paradise. Before working for Stormy Pirates, she worked for the Humane Society of St. Thomas, and now she jokes, “Animal rescue is kind of like the mafia where you don’t really get out!”
When asked why VISN was created, she pointed out that the Humane Society is the only take-in shelter on St. Thomas and their scope of work is astronomical. Burks saw Virgin Islands Spay and Neuter as a complimentary organization to hopefully scale back the number of homeless animals on the island by prioritizing spay and neutering efforts.
“Everywhere globally has a vet shortage,” Burks explains, “and underserved communities get hit especially hard. Being in the tropics, we are essentially in breeding season all year long. Further north, population explosions might happen more in the springtime, but we’re always at maximum breeding capacity. We felt spay and neuter clinics were something we could do to make the greatest impact for improving lives in our community, so we built a business plan that minimizes overhead and maximizes our ability to provide care, while also trying to streamline everything.”
Although the organization does collect minimal fees for their services, they also don’t turn anyone away because of costs.
“We have a donation platform set up through PayPal and Facebook, and we have what we call ‘The Community Fund’ so people can ‘spay-it-forward,’ Burks says. “Even if it’s a one-time donation of $10, it adds up.”
To help VISN raise some much-needed capital, Stormy Pirates recently put out the challenge to its followers to donate to the organization, promising to match the total donations made for the month of August up to $2500.
Although VISN was created to provide a service for animals, they also are very community-oriented and focused.
“We do our best to work with individuals within the community,” says Burks. “Sometimes it’s someone’s pet and sometimes it’s someone caring for a feral cat community. We don’t discriminate on where an animal comes from as long as the caregiver is interested in helping.”
Burks goes on to share how one of her first calls was from someone who wanted help with “his babies,” which turned out to be a family of feral cats that had taken up residence on his property. The mother cat had just given birth and wouldn’t let the gentleman touch her or the kittens, but he was concerned that all of those kittens would eventually be having babies of their own. Living off a fixed income, the gentleman worried he wouldn’t be able to care for all those animals, so VISN coordinated donations and put together a team to tackle the problem.
“We were able to provide assistance in trapping the cats and neutering them, but we also vaccinated and microchipped them, applied flea and heartworm preventative medicine, and sent them home with deworming medicine,” Burks recounts. “When I brought them all back to his house, he cried because he was so happy and the huge weight on his shoulders had been lifted.”
Now seven to eight months later, the gentleman still checks in with VISN to tell them, “My babies are doing great!”
Burks is no stranger to rescuing animals of her own as she currently has two dogs, a rabbit, a half dozen cats, a chicken and one three-legged goat that needs long-term care. (Sadly, we learned that her goat passed away.) While that may seem like too much to juggle, she also has three rabbits and ten cats in foster care.
“It’s a lot!,” sighs Burks. “Pet overpopulation isn’t an issue that’s unique to St. Thomas, but what is unique is that we’re an island with limited resources and options.”
The crew at Stormy Pirates Charters thankfully has her back and they’re supportive of her work with VISN. In fact, they’ve gotten quite used to the fact that on many days when Burks shows up for work there might be a menagerie of animals – a litter of abandoned puppies, a handful of kittens someone can no longer care for or even several rabbits found along the road – that arrive with her. No one ever complains and her crew mates are quick to make a fuss over her animal rescues.
Building relationships – with crew mates, other shelters, veterinary offices, and the community in general – seems to be what Burks does best. After all, as the saying goes …” It takes a village!” For example, each surgery day requires a team that involves one lead veterinarian, a surgical vet-tech, and a support team of four to five people. Another facet of support includes a handful of people who are advocates for the group by helping with transporting animals, trapping strays, supplying and laundering towels, and providing lunch for the medical team.
Burks also works with several rescue organizations that help place homeless animals.
“One of the big rescues I work with is Pet Search out of Washington, PA,” she says. “They’ve taken close to 20 animals from me this year, and the ones they took, the Humane Society didn’t have room for. There are more animals than homes on island.”
Vacationers to the Virgin Islands are encouraged to get involved as well, possibly stepping up to be adoptive owners or serving as escorts to get animals to shelters on the mainland. The nonprofit Pets with Wings, Inc. steps in and transports animal rescues from the islands to stateside organizations who can place them with permanent families. Animals can fly under a traveler’s seat to get stateside, and there is no cost to the traveler.
Recently, VISN was awarded a $13,000 grant from Banfield Foundation to buy some much-needed medical equipment. They also have their sights on raising funds to purchase a vehicle so they can offer mobile clinics.
“This equipment grant is going to be a huge game changer because it’ll allow us to utilize a high school gymnasium or a community center to run multiple day clinics,” explains Burks, adding, “It also means we can bring down a volunteer vet team from the states as we’re building these programs and thereby offer low-cost care to larger numbers of people rather than one Sunday a month.”
The goals, the work and the fundraising for VISN never ends, but the rewards for this group of off-season warriors are collected in the smiles, tears and phone calls from thankful pet owners – not to mention the drop-offs of cookies and lunches that randomly happen throughout the year as well as the numerous cards that arrive around holidays and birthdays signed with pawprints.
“Knowing we’re serving our community,” adds Burks, “that’s our biggest reward.”
End Notes: If you’d like to become part of the VISN community, reach out on Facebook or visit their web page. Donations are always needed and always appreciated, especially since the organization is hoping to run their first large-scale clinic with several vets on hand towards the end of 2024. No donation is too small when the need is so large!
For more information on local animal rescue and welfare groups on St. Thomas, St. John and the BVI, check out:
https://www.petswithwingsstt.com
https://www.stjohnanimalcarecenter.com/
https://thekittenfightclub.org
https://www.offtherocksrescue.org/
https://www.triplehranchvi.com
https://humanesocietystthomas.org/
And don’t forget that next vacation season is right around the corner. Please visit our web page at Stormy Pirates Charters – we promise to put the gang plank down and escort you in style.