Happy New Year! A greeting from Humboldt Wildlife Care Center’s Assistant Rehabilitation Manager!

Happy New Year to everyone! Please welcome Lucinda Adamson, assistant rehabilitation manager at HWCC, writing her first post for the Bird Ally X website!

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As the holiday season unfolds, things are getting quiet around the clinic. Many long time volunteers are away visiting family and friends for the holidays. And the phone rings less often than it used to, hopefully that means fewer animals are getting hurt.

There is still a lot of work to be done and thankfully not everyone travels for the holidays. Several new volunteers are just starting out after recently completing their orientation. (Find out how you can volunteer here.) They are quickly learning the meaning behind one of our sayings we have around here – housekeeping is animal care.

Several patients were recently released. Yay, Freedom for the Holidays!! Now we clean aviaries, siphon pools and repair leaks, tidy up the outdoor space and deep clean the indoor rooms. And all too soon we start thinking about what necessary repairs and additions must be made before orphaned baby seasons starts anew.

As I type this, I periodically check on an injured Glaucous-winged Gull (Larus glaucescens) floating in a therapy pool. Admitted just yesterday too thin and weak to stand up on his own, the warm water provides a chance at recovery and some small comfort in the otherwise stressful world of captivity. And I pause to answer the phone: responding to calls about injured deer, a hawk hit by a car, a sparrow who collided with a window, and providing advice on how to safely and humanely prevent a river otter from utilizing a koi pond as an easy dinner buffet.

In the room across the hall, an American Robin (Turdus migratorius) fights for her life. Suffering puncture wounds, feather loss, and a broken clavicle. We will never know exactly what caused her injuries but they are most consistent with a cat attack. Thanks to the vigilant community member who recognized something was wrong when the robin wouldn’t fly, she now has a chance of recovering. If all goes well, she’ll be in our care for 2-3 weeks and find freedom again in the new year.

Injury and need for care don’t take a holiday. The Humboldt Wildlife Care Center is open every day of the year. If you find an injured wild animal, please call our clinic right away 707-822-8839.

Thank you for your support. Your support has ensured that the one thousand one hundred and fifty-six animals we treated in 2017 had a place to go in their time of need. Your support really does make a difference for wildlife.

If you would like to donate to support our work, you can follow this link to our 2017 Holiday Card here.

Happy New Year!