The monkey-screeching ring tone cut through our interview. A baby hawk was down.

Bob Freer got the call on his cell phone, and we immediately headed off in his camouflage, hand-painted van with nothing more than a cat carrier and an eager 20-year-old volunteer.

Freer and his volunteers are animal paramedics on call 24 hours a day. They are also educators, mentors, builders, breeders and showmen. They form the Everglades Outpost community, a group of six permanent volunteers on a mission to rescue injured or abandoned wildlife.

The Outpost, a not-for-profit wildlife refuge created in 1993 in Homestead, Fla., is operated by Freer and his wife Barbara Tansey. Along with being a refuge, the Outpost is a menagerie.

A wide assortment of animals are found here, including bison, wolves, alligators, ducks, parrots, llamas, ponies, and snakes, all of which are available for public viewing. Educational programs have been created to further the Outpost’s second mission of teaching wildlife conservation.

“I actually grew up on a farm next to a zoo,” Freer, originally from upstate New York, volunteers. “So with taking care of their animals, and on the farm, we’d run across hurt or injured wildlife. I’ve always been involved.”

Freer, in his muscle-bearing, Outpost-promoting tank top, looked as if he could wrangle any alligator at a moment’s notice. In fact, all of his volunteers looked that way. The Outpost clan is a tight-knit group that not only shares a love of wildlife, but the 2.5- acre plot of land on which the Outpost sits.

Albert Killian, in particular, trades his venomous snake skills for free rent on the property. With a chuckle, Killian said his title is Manager of Reptile Affairs.

As we stood in what seemed like a large, metal shipping container filled with rattling snakes, I happily learned that he has his venomous reptile license and many years of experience.

“My interest peaked when I was around probably 17 years old,” said Killian, a native of Connecticut who is a self-taught snake handler. “I decided I wanted to collect venomous snakes from around the world. By the time I was 23, I had housed 2,000 venomous snakes.”

Since that age, Killian has been bitten more than 60 times. He proudly told me that his venom tolerance is much higher than mine, which I believe, having never been bitten by a snake.

As Freer’s right-hand man, Killian helped him literally build his Outpost from the ground up. Killian built all of the animal enclosures.

“It was something that was pursued because of an interest and a love, and just a fascination,” Killian explained. “But sometimes you begin to make a living at what you are interested in, and that’s the greatest thing — just not to give up on what you really want to pursue.”

And they haven’t at the Outpost, even after all of the hurdles it has faced since its creation.

“Years ago, anytime anybody called us 24 hours a day, we’d go out whether it was a bird, raccoon, possum or even something as large as a black bear,” Freer noted. “But because of the price of gas and just the cost of trying to keep things going, we try to have them bring it (the animal) to us, if it’s something that can’t cause injury to them.”

Naturally, with the Outpost’s estimated operating costs being $120,000 annually and rising, the facility is face to face with something more threatening than the animals there: Shutdown.

It goes without saying that the Outpost provides a public service. 911 calls Freer and his volunteers to respond to public-animal problems. Florida Fish and Game uses the Outpost to house animals in legal disputes, and the Outpost provides an outlet for offenders to work off their probation obligations.

For all of this, for the most part, the Outpost’s aid goes unpaid.

The state, the county and the city of Homestead all benefit from the Outpost, yet do not offer any funding. Freer and his wife use the earnings from their second jobs to keep the Outpost afloat. But they can do that for only so long. They are quickly approaching retirement age.

In a time when liability insurance, hurricane insurance, property tax, and fuel costs are spurting, places like the Outpost and people like Bob, Barbara and Albert all need to know that all sectors – public, private, government, business — appreciate their public service.

They also need money from those sectors to keep their important mission as alive as the animals they care for.

By the way, you can reach Freer on his monkey-screeching cell phone at 305-247-8000.

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