WEBVTT

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Hi everyone.

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As Jason said, my
name is Shannon.

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And I will be talking about
wildlife rehabilitation

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of birds.

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So I did my internship at
Blue Mountain Wildlife Center,

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which is up in
Pendleton, Oregon, which

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is in northeastern Oregon very
close to the Washington border.

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What this organization
does is it

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takes in injured,
orphaned and sick birds.

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And it helps rehabilitate them
and ideally release them back

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into the wild.

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And it takes a
wide range of birds

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from raptors to song birds
and everything in between.

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Additionally, this organization
does some education

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where they have some birds
that live on site permanently.

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And people can
come and take tours

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and learn about why
those birds are there

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and why they can't be released.

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And sometimes the director
of the organization

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will bring those birds
to schools or camps

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and do a similar
presentation there.

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Additionally, this organization
serves a very large area,

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approximately the size
of New York State.

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So we get a lot of birds
from a very large area.

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As an intern, my duties
and responsibilities

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included feeding and giving
water to the animals,

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doing treatments to make sure
that they were getting better,

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intakes when we got new
animals, lots of cleaning

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and sometimes releases.

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And up there you see a picture
of an ordinary goshawk, which

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is one of the
permanent residents.

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So first and foremost
feeding and water.

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One of the main things
that the interns did

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is we took care of the baby
birds, which sometimes mean

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they needed to be fed as often
as every 30 minutes, usually

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formula.

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And that began at 7
AM and ended at 8 PM.

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So that kept us very busy.

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Also, we provided
food for the animals

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in the clinic that had not
been moved outside yet.

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And that also ranged
from formula and seed

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to animals, such as mice.

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And we would also feed
the animals outdoors.

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So every morning we would feed
the songbirds seed and fruit.

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And then once for a couple of
weeks when one of the employees

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was gone, I was
actually designated

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to take care of some
of the animals outside.

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But she usually takes care them.

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They received most
meat, like rabbits.

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All the more intensive things
we did were treatments.

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So we would treatments up to
three times a day, morning,

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noon, and evening.

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And first we would
weigh the animals

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to make sure they
weren't losing weight.

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We would then give
them medicines

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such as oral medication
or sometimes injections.

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And we would give them foods
and special fruits they needed

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to make sure that
they were hydrated

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and getting all the
nutrients they needed.

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And if necessary, we
would change [INAUDIBLE]..

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And you can see here myself
and another intern to feeding

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a baby American kestrel.

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You can't really
see the kestrel,

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so I put a picture of
them down the bottom.

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One of the really fun
things that we did

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were intakes, which is
when we got new birds.

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And the first things we
would do is look at them

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to see if we can immediately
tell what was wrong with it.

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If not, we would anesthetize
it and palpate it.

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That is where you feel
it, starting at the center

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and moving along each wing,
to see if you could feel

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any broken bones or injuries.

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We would then do a
radiograph, which is basically

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an X-ray to pinpoint
any fractures

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or breaks in their bones.

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And then for the
larger raptors, we

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would draw blood
to do lead tests

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and populate total packed cell
volume and [? see ?] buffy coat

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and do total protein,
which gave us

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some information about
their immune system.

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As they were waking up
from the anesthetics,

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we would give them injections,
often vitamin A and D complex

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and vitamin B. Sometimes iron
if they have really low packed

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cell volume, and
then oral medications

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which ranged from antibiotics.

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Everyone would get
anti-parasite medication.

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Some would get
anti-inflammatory.

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Some would get pain meds.

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And you see here a female
juvenile bald eagle

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who is under anesthesia.

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And the bald patch on her wings
is just where we drew blood.

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As I mentioned before I did a
lot of cleaning, which I mostly

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bring up to point out that
wildlife rehabilitation

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is not the most glamorous job.

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So I cleaned kennels and cages.

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And I swept and mopped floors.

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And I did lots and
lots of dishes.

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And when we had time, which
was not very frequently,

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we would go outside and rake
some of the outdoor enclosures.

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And, of course, we would
constantly be doing laundry.

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In here, you see
a baby merganser

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with a dish of meal worms.

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And as you can see, the
blanket that he's on

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is already very dirty.

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One of the really rewarding
parts of my internship

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was doing releases.

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So when a bird was
getting better,

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we would test fly it and see if
they could actually survive on

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it own.

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And if it was deemed
releasable, we would let it go.

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So here I have a short video of
myself releasing a white owl.

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So, this white owl came
in while I was there.

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And we had it for
about six weeks.

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It had a broken wing,
and we weren't sure

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if it was ever
going to fly again.

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But obviously it did.

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So, that was really great.

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A few interesting cases that I
want to bring up that I thought

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were really cool
during my internship,

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on the left you see a
ring-billed gull, which came in

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and it had swallowed
a fish hook.

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So what we did for
this was we gave it

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some mice and some extra
fur from other mice

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in the hopes that it would
make a pellet, which it would

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[? cast, ?] and it did.

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And the pellet did contain
the fish hook, but also

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a lure and a rock, as you
can see in the picture there.

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In the center, we have
five Vaux's swifts,

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which we got towards the
end of my internship.

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They were a pain to
take care of because

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their aerial insectivores, which
means they only eat insects,

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and only while flying.

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So we had to force feed them.

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And we had to be very careful
not to fracture their jaws

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because their very small.

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And then in the top right,
you see a picture of a bird

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that we had a really
hard time identifying.

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If anyone wants to guess
what kind of bird it is?

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Anyone?

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It's actually a
brown-headed cowbird.

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But it's very small, so we had
a really hard time figuring out

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what that was.

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And then below it we have
a common night hawk, which

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actually had to be euthanized.

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But it's one of
my favorite birds.

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So I wanted to be with it.

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So I faced a lot of challenges
during my internship,

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the first of which was
emotional challenges.

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We had to euthanized
a lot of birds, which

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was very hard to deal with.

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And sometimes we just didn't
have the resources to take

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care of some of the birds.

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They could potentially
recover, but we

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didn't have the manpower
or the technology

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to help them get there.

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And that was really challenging
knowing that these birds could

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possibly be saved
but we simply didn't

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have the resources to do that.

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Additionally, I faced
physical challenges.

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Like I mentioned, I worked
from 7 AM to 8 PM, of course

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with some breaks, but
basically everyday.

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I had one day off the
entire [? time. ?]

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So it was just
physically exhausting.

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And then I faced
personal challenges.

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I had to learn-- we didn't get
a formal training when we began,

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so I had to learn on the job,
which was frustrating when

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I didn't get the full picture.

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And I often made mistakes.

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We also had to learn
to work independently.

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So we had a running list of
what needed to be done everyday.

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And we would just do whatever
we could when we had time.

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And then I had to
balance responsibilities

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with the other
intern who was there.

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So sometimes one of
us would do dishes.

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And some of us would get
to work with the birds.

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And we did work out a
good system for that.

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So overall, I really
enjoyed my internship.

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And I would highly
recommend it for anyone

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who's interested in
wildlife rehabilitation.

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And as you see here is a
northern baby spotted owl,

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which is very cute.

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But thank you for
your attention.

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And I'll take any questions.

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We'll hold the
questions until the end.

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OK.

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[INAUDIBLE]

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OK.

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Thank you very much.

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[APPLAUSE]

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