Each year we produce a mug to commemorate the hard work our volunteers generously donate and a species who had it worse than many others. This year’s mug for 2021 is now here, and it’s the tenth in our series!

Featuring the Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis), a remarkable bird of the deep northern seas who only comes to land to nest during a brief breeding season, our 2021 mug honors the multitude of Fulmars we admitted in 2021.

Between 2012 and 2020, we admitted 35 Northern Fulmars, for a variety of reasons, but mostly just found stranded. Yet in 2021, we admitted 24 of these mysterious seabirds!

Northern Fulmars are a seabird with distinct challenges for any would-be care provider. In the early days of seabird rehabilitation, Fulmars were notorious for simply not making it in captive care situations – causing geat heartbreak and frustration for those of us trying to get them back to wild freedom. About 15 years ago, great strides in their care were made during a mass stranding in event in Monterey Bay, in which the team I was on provided care for nearly 100 of these birds. Because the facility where we were doing this rescue operation had a pool that used salt water brought in directly from the ocean, we made the fortuitous discovery that Northern Fulmars, and all procelliformes (or tubenoses) cannot thrive on fresh water, as most salt water birds can manage for short stays.

Once we started making sure that all Fulmars were housed on salted pools, our success rate began to climb. Now we think of them as any other seabird, still with challenges but within our abilities to treat and release. Of the 24 Norhtern Fulmars admitted in 2021, we were able to provide care for 9 (the other 15 either had injuries too severe to treat or were deceased on admission – a sad but typical toll). Of the 9 we attempted to treat, just over 50 % were successfully released – a result much more in line with the results we might expect from any species we admit.

If you’d like one of our new mugs, drawn by Bird Ally X’s famed art director, Laura Coriglia, simply stop in at our clinic in Bayside (not for long, we’re moving at the end of this year!). We’re asking $10 for each mug.

Thank you for your support over the years, and for helping us improve the quality of care available for wildlife in Humboldt, in California and around the world. It’s serious work and we couldn’t do it without you! And if you can, please donate here! Thank you!!!!