Author: Monte Merrick

So Many Screech-Owls

Posted on by Monte Merrick

Every Autumn and Winter, as shortened days leave afternoon commuters driving home in the dark, as early evenings bring nocturnal wild animals out to forage and hunt, at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center we suddenly start admitting many more owls, mostly hit by vehicles.

Surprisingly, many owls survive their collision with speeding cars, especially smaller owls who have less mass to contribute to the energy of the impact. Less energy in the impact means the odds increase of the bird avoiding some of the life threatening outcomes, such as broken bones, dislocated joints, eye trauma and other injuries their larger cousins usually suffer when hit by vehicles.

Since the first day of Autumn 2018 until today, January 7, we’ve admitted 14 Western Screech-Owls (Megascops kennicottii) for care after they each but two were likely hit by vehicles. Sadly, this is a fairly typical number of owls for us to admit at this time of year. If past years are any indication, there are several more of these small owls yet to be hit by cars before Winter’ end.

When owls are hit by cars, eye trauma potentially causing blindness is a common injury. Our initial exam of all patients includes checking their ability to see and respond to visual stimulation.

While all but two of the 14 Screech-owls admitted this Fall and Winter were hit by vehicles, it’s also true that each came from highly rural, two lane roads away from the major highways of Humboldt County. Alderpoint, Carlotta, Bayside, Kneeland, Freshwater are the the most common locations of Screech-owls being hit by vehicles.

The Safety Corridor on US 101 between Arcata and Eureka is a special zone of mandatory headlights and a speed limit reduced to 50 miles per hour due to the businesses and intersections along those few miles of four lane highway. We know that there will be cross traffic and so we prepare for it. We slow down, we turn on our headlights and we raise our awareness, for the sake everyone’s safety.

We need to bring that same kind of awareness to our driving habits on rural highways.

The beauty of our region – the Redwood forests, the bay, the ocean, the mountains – is part and parcel of our love for our home. Here in Humboldt the Wild always makes itself felt and known – a strong sea breeze comes up from the bay through the mall parking lot, or across the Arcata Plaza. We live in a region rich in wild neighbors and to be better neighbors, we can anticipate that they are here – from Screech-owls to Spotted Owls, from Spotted Skunks to Great Egrets – we can accommodate their needs

Chiefly, we can slow down when we drive. We can remember that we steer our machinery through our neighbors’ homes. The least we can do is strive to not run them down.

Staff examines each wing for fractures or other injuries.
Often Screech-owls, especially in daylight hours, won’t leave their transport carriers upon release. So we resort to placing the Owl on a branch or some other suitable perch.
Sometimes, they simply float away from the palm of the hand, before we set them on the nearby stump…
At home
Western Screech-owl flying back to freedom.
Release!

Surprisingly, 14 Screech-owls admitted in 3 of the Fall/Winter months is not an unusually high number. In fact it’s well within what we call normal. The only means we have to reduce this number is to change our habits and raise our awareness. Seeing wildlife is a challenge for us all in these highly abstracted times when the natural world can seem an afterthought. Still it’s our responsibility to operate our machinery as gently as we can.

Bicyclists, pedestrians, even motorcyclists, know the horror of not being seen or expected by car and truck drivers. Share the Road! See Motorcycles! Stop for Me! Signs like these are all over our communities. Sadly the only real warnings we post about wildlife crossings are for those animals who are big enough to cause damage to people or property in a collision. We need to expand our concerns. We need Owl Awareness. We need Wildlife Watchouts!

Until we’ve managed to better share this world we don’t own, our work helping these Owls, as well as all the other wild neighbors who are orphaned, injured and in need, due to their collision with the human-built world, Your support makes it possible. Please help keep our doors open, our lights on and the frozen mice coming. Our wild neighbors in need, need you. Thank you

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2018, Challenging, Unpredictable, Heartbreaking, Rewarding…

Posted on by Monte Merrick

Dear Friends, Supporters, and fellow lovers of the Wild,

Henry Thoreau noted over a 150 years ago that “in wildness is the preservation of the world.” You could say it’s the corollary of a more recent observation making the rounds on social media right now, attributed to Muhammad Ali, that “it’s not the deer that is crossing the road, rather it’s the road that is crossing the forest.

WANT TO SKIP THE READ AND GO SEE PICTURES OF SOME OF THIS YEAR’S FAWNS AND RACCOONS BEING RELEASED? click here and here. WANT TO MAKE A DONATION NOW WITHOUT SCROLLING ALL THE WAY DOWN? click here

It’s not hard to see that our society has put its faith and effort behind expansion of villages, towns, nations, trading routes, mechanization, the lot of it; – all of which has been, intentionally or not, a war on the wild. As a whole, our society sides with the road, we side with efforts to tame, the efforts to neutralize the wild and wildness. In short, we betray our home.

Our society has been betraying the wild for centuries, if not millennia, and it’s not some great abstraction or controversy to be debated, over which we must wrestle with viewpoints that give humans dominion, or that find in the world only human meaning. The simple truth can be seen on the side of every road we drive right here in Humboldt County. How many raccoons run down by vehicles on the highway and left to bloat do we need to see? We all know from what our own eyes tell us every day that the modern world finds its pavement to be far more necessary than the wild it destroys. Our allegiance to our machinery is so old and, by now, so integral to our lives that trying to imagine a world in which a Raccoon mother and her four young ones are more important than getting to Arcata in ten minutes is largely impossible.

We live in a world we didn’t make. Yet we make it every day.

One morning on US 101 as it passes through Eureka, someone threw their leftover fast food trash out their car window. At Humboldt Wildlife Care Center that meant that we admitted two Western Gulls (Larus occidentalis) that day. Both had been drawn to the food on the pavement there only to be hit by cars, injured so badly that humanely helping them into the next life was the only real treatment possible. Both gulls were rescued from further injury and suffering by compassionate people who saw the terrible thing unfold and couldn’t just drive on by.

Ours is a world where none of us are safe from accidentally harming our wild neighbors. We come from nature, like the rest of our neighbors, yet we’ve made our alliance with the struggle to overcome her. As if there might be a place there, beyond the Wild, where we might stand. And there is: extinction.

Every morning this year, Humboldt Wildlife Care Center/bax opened its doors, turned on its lights, became alive with the activity of staff and volunteers launching in to the day’s tasks caring for our patients and responding to phone calls regarding wild animals in need. We sent out teams to rescue hawks from the bank of the Mad River, or a hummingbird trapped inside a storefront. We opened our clinic to what may come – traumatically injured owls who’d been hit by a car; a group of orphaned raccoons whose mother had been trapped and taken far away; a young fawn rescued from one of the many fires this year, too badly burned to survive; a wayward fledgling crow successfully reunited with her parents; – a Pelican rescued; – a Pelican released.2018 is the most active year in Bird Ally X history. Not only did we care for nearly 1200 patients admitted to HWCC/bax here in Humboldt, our staff from around the state (notably, two BAX co-founders January Bill and Marie Travers) responded to an avian botulism outbreak in Siskiyou County, establishing a temporary field hospital to care for more than 400 ducks and shorebirds. In order to accomplish this volunteers from all over California helped, including support from HWCC staff, interns and volunteers. Three of the six BAX co-founders also traveled across the country and across oceans responding to oil spills that impacted wildlife as a part of other organizations’ responses. We’ve cared for more patients and reached more people through our outreach programs and internet presence than ever before and we struggle each day, each week, each month to cover our basic expenses.

Each year we talk about the mounting challenges, the difficulties, the successes, the sorrows, the joys of our work rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing back to freedom our wild neighbors in need. Each year we note the worsening symptoms of Earth out of balance. And each year we are committed to providing treatment, to the best of our abilities, for all those wild neighbors who are orphaned, or injured, or sickened by their contact with the built world – by their contact with us.

Each year we do what we can to advocate for our wild neighbors, to at least reduce the numbers who are hit by cars, trapped, caught and maimed or killed by our pets, whose nests are destroyed, whose wild, free and innocent lives are interrupted by our thoughtless machines and our tacit acceptance of the havoc they wreak.

Each year we are grateful and appreciative of your many-faceted support, moral, financial, and even sweat equity. Many of you work hard to bring balance back to the human experience of living on Earth. Your contribution is seen, recognized and highly valued.

We don’t know what trials are coming our way, but we know that deep love for the wild, compassion, love for our world, commitment, hard work and education must be woven so tightly together that they seem as one.

We know that there is no way for a humane future to come that doesn’t include taking care of those who we’ve harmed. That’s why we’re here. That’s why you support our work. It’s why we get misty when you thank us, with words, with money, with towels, with your love, and with your labor.

It’s also why we need you to support us like never before. Our workload is increasing at a rate faster than our ability to pay for it. Our mission demands that we grow, that we are able to accomplish more, not less, on behalf of our wild patients – as well as our colleagues for whom we also work. If we are to accomplish our work, it will be your support that made it so. We look forward to leaning on you in 2019 and beyond. Thank you.

With deep respect, gratitude – working together in alliance with the wild for a more humane 2019,

Monte Merrick
co-director Bird Ally X
director HWCC/bax

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Awesome Video of a Barn Owl’s Return to the Wild

Posted on by Monte Merrick

Here in the midst of our hectic Holiday season, with so many stressful moments among the celebrations of peace, joy and our common humanity, we share the recent release of a young Barn Owl (Tyto Alba), rescued from exposure, dehydration and starvation when he was found hiding on the ground among bushes, cold and wet, where the Hammond Trail meets the Clam Beach parking lot.

After providing emergency stabilization care, such as you would provide any lost hiker – warmth, warm fluids, and later some food – and a safe, restful space, soon the owl was able to move to outdoor housing. With a healthy appetite and will to thrive, the young adult was soon back in fighting form, ready for the demands of wild freedom. We took him back to fields above Clam Beach. Watch the video for an excellent view of one of the Wild’s children coming home. And if you can, please, help. It’s your support that makes our work possible. Donate today.

Stop by our clinic at 2182 Old Arcata Rd and pick up our 2018 mug for just a
$10 minimum donation!
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Christmas Song Sparrow Release!

Posted on by Monte Merrick

So far in 2018, at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center we’ve admitted nearly 50 birds and one bat who we know struck windows (there may be more, but we can’t say with certainty). This is close to 5% of our total patients admitted. Almost two-thirds of these animals suffered life-ending injuries in the collision! As we’ve mentioned in past posts, up to a billion birds each year are killed by collisions with glass. Still, many of our patients who’ve suddenly smashed into that invisible wall do recover! On the day of the winter solstice, we admitted a Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) who’d collided with a window in Eureka. If you’re going to smash into a window, it helps if you’re small. The less mass you bring to the impact, the less traumatic injury you’re likely to suffer.

After such a collision, it is critical that an injured bird get immediate attention. We always recommend that a bird who has struck a window be brought to our clinic for an evaluation and the safety of care while we assess the level of injury, and the need for treatment. Sometimes we might release the bird within 24 hours, and sometimes it takes a little longer, even without any broken bones.

After four days of treatment, safety and readily available food, this Song Sparrow was back to normal. On Christmas Day we took him back to the neighborhood where he was rescued and restored his freedom.

In the aviary, checking out the box he might travel in if all goes well….
  • Flying inside one of our songbird aviaries, looking good!
  • A quick exam after observing flight: all is well.
  • Out of the box!
  • Up…
  • Up…
  • and Away!
  • Healthy former patients, “lighting out for the Territories” is the best gift we could get…
  • HWCC/bax intern Brooke Brown agrees!

This Song Sparrow was one of the lucky “window strikes.” Besides the relatively minor injuries he suffered, the simple fact of being seen and rescued by the kind person who brought him to us saved his life. Our ability to provide care for our region’s wild neighbors in need is wholly dependent on your generosity. Without your support, we wouldn’t have been here for the nearly 1200 patients we’ve treated so far in 2018. We’re going to need your support in 2019 too! Thank you for keeping our doors open!

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all photos: Laura Corsiglia/ Bird Ally X

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Tonight! Celebrate the Volunteers!

Posted on by Monte Merrick

Come out tonight to help us honor and celebrate the generous and compassionate people who help Humboldt Wildlife Care Center everyday. Without our volunteers we wouldn’t be able to meet our mission. Volunteers get it done!

Can’t make it but would like to make a donation in honor of our volunteers’ hard work? Donate here!

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Season’s Greetings, 2018!

Posted on by Monte Merrick

Dear Friends and Supporters!

Season’s greetings once again! Another year of challenges, growth, griefs and joys! Bird Ally X/Humboldt Wildlife Care Center staff and resources were deeply challenged by record numbers of patients, our busiest summer, very late season babies, and emergency care of birds hit by botulism in the Tulelake National Wildlife Refuge. As climate change and other disasters alter what we thought was immutable, we find our knowledge and comprehension of the world no longer seems to fill in the map.

While our maps are suddenly full of blank spaces, the world has no voids. Each nook and cranny has someone who lives there. From the scorpion in the crevice in a high desert cliff to the salamander family nested beneath an old discarded tire.

For cavity-nesters like the Chestnut-backed chickadees (Poecile rufescens) on this card, a hollow at the top of a utility pole in the middle of Blue Lake, California is a perfectly fine place to raise your babies.

And it would have been a fine place, if PG&E hadn’t needed to replace the pole. Mishaps like these, at various points on the spectrum of preventability, are the inevitable result of the built world taken at face value by the resourceful and always honest wild. No matter where we build and operate the machinery of our times, if we aren’t careful a wild neighbor, a wild family, are going to be harmed. And so often, we aren’t careful.

That’s why BAX/HWCC is here. We admitted five tiny young chickadee babies that day when the big PG&E truck rolled up our driveway. Had they not been seen when their nest was destroyed, the babies would have died. Instead, your support gave them a second chance. We released them a month later, fully fledged and ready for independence, back in Blue Lake, into a flock of their own kind along the banks of the Mad River.

At this time of year, it is common and useful to give thanks for what we have and to express our love and warmth to those who travel though the mysteries with us. It’s enjoy­able to imagine a peaceful future, to dream toward it, and to hope that even our smallest wild neighbors are invited to partake in it – a de-escalated war on Mother Earth.

Thank you for dreaming this with us – and for doing something about it. We wish you a warm holiday season and a happy new year! – We’re counting on you in 2019!

Thank you!
All of us at Bird Ally X and Humboldt Wildlife Care Center

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A Peregrine Falcon we called Carson

Posted on by Monte Merrick

With deep sadness, we say goodbye to one of Humboldt Wildlife Care Center’s most famous captive raptors, the Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) we called Carson. Carson served as a “wildlife ambassador” on our education team for more than 12 years. His time with us ended over Thanksgiving weekend, when he was found deceased in his enclosure where he was cared for daily.

The cause of death has yet to be determined, but it’s rare for a captive Peregrine Falcon to live more than 20 years. First admitted as young bird in early 2005, he was no more than two years old. Suffering a fractured femur after having likely been hit by a car, surgery was performed but the bone healed poorly preventing his release.

For many wild animals (over a million animals in the US each year) life ends with being hit by a vehicle. Collisions with cars and trucks account for a huge percentage of Peregrine Falcon fatalities. One study (, Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group unpubl.) found that 11% of fatalities in mid-western populations were caused by vehicle collisions.

In the second half of the twentieth century Peregrine Falcons suffered dramatic losses due to widespread use of injurious pesticides (such as DDT) that interfered with reproduction and egg integrity. In fact, Carson was named for Rachel Carson, whose groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, helped fuel the groundswell of public concern over the impact of these toxins in our environment. In 1970, Peregrine Falcons were granted greater federal protection, and when the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, Peregrine Falcons were among the first put on the endangered species list (listed, we say). Banning DDT in the United States in 1972, combined with captive breeding and release programs, gave the species what it needed for recovery. In 1999, Peregrine Falcons were taken of the list of endangered species.

In his life as an “education bird”, Carson was introduced to hundreds of kids and adults throughout the Humboldt region, accompanied by our human education team and a message of conservation. Carson has been painted and photographed many times, and displayed annually at Godwit Days, our local Spring birding festival. In his way, he was a Humboldt celebrity. Carson the Peregrine Falcon with long time education team leader, Merry Maloney, who preceded Carson in death by four years. Both Carson and Merry remain in our hearts.


A life of captivity did not dampen the Falcon’s “implacable arrogance”, as California poet Robinson Jeffers described the wild gaze of the raptor…
In his life as Carson, this Peregrine Falcon touched hundreds of human lives – something that would have never happened without initially being hit by a car. We honor the sacrifice he made as well as the work our education team has done in the name of co-existing with the wild.

We’re grateful for the work of Carson, and all the members of our education team, avian and human, did to promote conservation and love for the wild. Carson’s life came to an end just as HWCC/bax embarks on a new education program, with a heightened awareness of the stress and threats to well-being that captivity poses to wild animals. While humane ethics demand that we discontinue use of live animals in our educational efforts, the work done by our team is acknowledged and appreciated. We look forward to building on that effort, keeping the memory of Carson and all those wild neighbors whose lives were re-directed into captivity by an unfortunate event in our hearts. Your support for our work, and for our staff, especially those who worked closely with Carson and are grieving his loss, is appreciated more than we can ever say. Thank you.

 

 

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After the Babes of Summer Have Gone

Posted on by Monte Merrick

Each Spring we wonder if we’ll survive the challenges of our looming season of caring for hundreds of orphaned wild animals. Each Spring we do what we can to reduce the number of trapped or killed wild mothers, stop needless nest destruction and anything else we think of to keep wild families together. Still, each year we admit more babies each year than the year before, and 2018 was no different. In fact we broke records this year for wild orphans treated.

And we are close to surviving the challenging pace!

[Help us pay our remaining 2018 bills – please, on this #GivingTuesday, donate to HWCC/bax and help us finish the year and prepare for 2019! Donate HERE]

Last week, we released the last of the babies we’ve been caring for at HWCC since the Summer – two late season raccoons (Procyon lotor) and a Black-tailed Deer fawn (Odocoileus hemionus) who also was brought to us unusually late in the season.

As the last babies in care from this very hectic year, we are so glad that they made it home to their wild freedom. Please take a moment and look through the photographs from their releases. They’re the reason for the season.

Simply transporting an older fawn in a crate to the release site is highly stressful! Once sagely arrived, opening the door is a thrill! HWCC/bax intern, Tabytha Sheeley does the honors!
A tentative glance – can it be true? are there really no walls to confine me?!
Just a hint of spots remain for this young deer, who was found near Blocksburg huddled next to his dead mother. Nearly every fawn we admit is traumatized by their mother’s death and requires a couple of days of supportive before they will accept a milk substitute.

One last look back to see if we are still a threat…

And then away he goes…

… quickly putting distance between himself and our release team. So long young deer!

Just as with our fawns, raccoons are admitted in a typically helpless state. Roughly four months of care are needed to until these guys are old enough for independence. Our favorite release site is several miles form the nearest house, with a healthy forest and a tributary of a local river that provides all the resources (like fish!) our former patients need.

These two raccoons aren’t siblings, but they were admitted for care within a few days of each other. Once their initial quarantine period was over (to prevent transmission of disease or parasites) they’ve shared housing their entire time in care. Now they have the chance to spend time together by choice!


After exploring the real river (our housing for raccoons has an artificial river where they learn to fish) this young male finds an interesting leaf, but as you can see, the forest has suddenly captured the attention of his superb raccoon intelligence…Soon both raccoons leave the release and head up into the woods, where insects, mushrooms, and more await them.
Another successful release of successfully raised wild babies!

As we conclude baby season 2018, we are very grateful for the support we’ve received. We couldn’t have gotten through this Spring, Summer and Fall without you! We still have expenses to cover and we also need to begin making necessary repairs and other maintenance so that we’ll be ready when it starts all over again in only four months!

We’re publishing this story on #givingtuesday. Now, like you our inboxes are filled with pleas for support on this day, and we appreciate the mounting alarms of our era, but truly, without you, we’d no longer be able to keep our doors open, our raccoon river flowing, our deer milk on tap and our 1200 patients that we treat each year would have nowhere to go. Your support keeps the abyss closed. Please, help us help our wild neighbors! Thank you!!!


all photos: Bird Ally X/Laura Corsiglia

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One morning on the 101, two sibling Hawks cause more than a few to take notice.

Posted on by Monte Merrick

It was an ordinary Wednesday morning at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, including the ringing phone and the person calling who’d seen a hawk by the side of US101 in the “safety corridor” between Arcata and Eureka. That section of highway, from the Eucalyptus trees that are slated for destruction to the bridge over the Eureka slough is a favorite hunting place for Red-tailed Hawks (Buteo jamaicensis). We frequently gets calls from concerned commuters about hawks on the ground – in the median, or by the side of the road – who seem unable to fly.

Rarely is the hawk actually in trouble. After eating it can take a raptor a while to be ready to fly again. For some reason the passing traffic does not seem to threaten the birds as they recover from a large meal (not exactly asleep in front of a televised Thanksgiving Day football game, but similar.). However, just because it usually isn’t an emergency, and just because the hawk is almost always perfectly fine doesn’t mean we don’t take these calls seriously. We treat plenty of hawks and other birds each year who’ve been hit by cars, and until we investigate we can’t know what the situation is.

As we mounted a voyage of discovery to that area to see what was going on, the phone rang again – and again. And again. Within an hour we’d received close to 30 calls about the hawk!

Soon our team was back. They’d caught the hawk easily. She’d been standing very close to traffic on the side of the highway beneath the eucalyptus trees. A juvenile whose tail was far from being red, she had no injuries that we could find. We set her up with a safe place and some mice as a meal. Immediately, she ate them.

Meanwhile, the calls kept coming! Apparently another hawk was near the same location, but in the median and closer to the bridge.

Another staff member went to check the second reported hawk out, finding a healthy looking bird that did not seem to need assistance. However, the calls did not stop coming in and with rush hour approaching, concerns about people trying to stop to help the hawk in heavy traffic, as well as the hawk’s safety during that time prompted us to try and catch him as well. Using a lucky break in the traffic we were able to safely net the hawk and bring him to our clinic for evaluation. Our staff noticed that a large adult Red-tailed Hawk, quite likely mother to both of these youngsters, was perched on a light post nearby watching as our captures unfolded.

Neither hawk had any injuries. Both were in relatively good condition although mildly dehydrated. We gave supportive care (i.e., food and fluids) and housed them for the night. The next day we moved both siblings (by their sizes, we believe that one, the larger, is female and the other is male) to an outdoor aviary in order to evaluate their flight.

On Friday, both hawks were evaluated for release. Both were flying very well, but the male was still mildly dehydrated, moreover, he hadn’t eaten while in care. We released the female and gave the male another day to eat and also to get more fluid therapy. The next day, he’d eaten and his hydration was returned to normal, and he was also released.

We took them near to their capture site, in the Fay Slough Wildlife Area, a safe distance from the freeway and very likely close to where they’d been raised. In fact on the first release, the adult Red-tailed Hawk we’d seen watching these birds’ capture was present. The female juvenile was released in her view, and both birds ended up flying off together. The next day, when the male was released, he was joined by his sister as soon as he took flight into nearby trees.

The power, the grace and the single-minded devotion to raptorizing… she’s got it all!

Even with all those advantages, she’s still just a juvenile with a lot to learn. In captivity or by the side of the road, young hawks sometimes find themselves in very awkward situations.

One of the best moments in a rehabilitator’s day – opening the box!


The young female takes flight, not yet aware that her mother can see her.

Perched in nearby vegetation while her mother watches from a much higher perch behind her, our former patient surveys her re-gained freedom.

The daughter…
… and the mother, last seen flying off together…

Volunteer Katharine Major enjoys giving a wild hawk her second chance.

Alone in our aviary for a day, the male ate well.

An additional day in care was all the brother needed before he could be released. Dehydration, even mild, is serious enough to address and well within the scope of what we can immediately do for our patients. Caution rules the day!

A minute on the ground to get his bearings… it’s not unusual for a young patient to need a moment out of the box to see which way the wind blows… see if there’s any food in the field and woods rat burrows.

And then he goes! Birds flying away is a favorite thing of ours…

Our ex-patient flies to the trees where his sister is waiting.

The siblings, free and together again, in the wild.
Happy interns Brooke Brown (left) and Tabytha Sheeley enjoy the fruits of their labors!

Intent, strength, and nearby parent – this young aerial ballerina (and her brother) has everything she needs – including this second chance – for a live well lived on the shores of Humboldt Bay.

While these hawks weren’t injured they were in a very dangerous location. Their reluctance to fly away on their own was causing all kinds of commotion with our human neighbors. It was prudent to catch these birds to make sure that all was well with them, as well as making sure that no one was harmed trying rescue them themselves. These two sibling hawks illustrate that we serve our wild neighbors first, but we also serve our human neighbors as well. Your support makes our mission possible!

As we near the end of this very challenging year, with so many demands on our attention and resources, we are forced to ask over and over again for your financial help. Keeping our clinic open to the myriad phone calls and emergencies isn’t easy and with out you it would even be a possibility. On this day, when we celebrate with gratitude our lives, our loves, our families and our shared world, please keep in mind the wild – without which none of anything would even exist.

all photos: Bird Ally X/ Laura Corsiglia

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Barn Owl Hit By Car and Left for Dead Treated at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center (VIDEO)

Posted on by Monte Merrick

One of our biggest challenges at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center is the sheer enormity of the region that we serve. From the Oregon border to northern Mendocino county and from the Pacific Ocean to Weaverville, our region is more than double the size of each of the 9 smallest states in the union.

(scroll down for release photos and video!)

When we got the call that an owl was found on the side of the road in Smith River, about 100 miles north, right at the state line, we set into motion a dedicated group of volunteers to start the relay to bring the injured bird south to our clinic in Bayside.We routinely admit patients from all over the North Coast. Volunteers in Del Norte County met volunteers from Humboldt in Orick, between Patrick’s Point and Klamath, to hand off the owl. Just another day meeting the needs of wildlife in a territory larger than many states!

It turned out that the bird was a Barn Owl (Tyto alba) who’d likely been hit by a car. Although there is always some degree of guesswork to figure out what happened to our patients that caused their injuries, because the owl had been found on the side of the road, was suffering from severe dehydration, but was in relatively good body condition, had no broken bones, but was unable to fly, we deduced that the s/he’d been hit by a car. Often smaller owls and other birds who are hit by cars escape serious injury, suffering only a concussion that can still be debilitating for the first few days. Without treatment they will likely die, but with treatment they recover quickly. The degree of dehydration, suggested that the owl had been on the ground for at least a few days. If the owl hadn’t been seen, dehydration would have likely been the immediate cause of death. We treated with fluids and anti-inflammatory medicine.

[We need your help! Please donate today!]

For severely dehydrated patients, the most critical treatment we can give is fluids.

After fluids, medicines, warmth and a safe pace to recover are next on the list.

Within a couple of days, with continued fluid therapy, we were able to move the owl to an outside aviary, which would reduce stress and give us the opportunity to observe the bird’s recovery. With hydration restored and with a good appetite for the mice we offered, the owl’s health had improved quickly. After 6 days, we evaluated the owl for release.


When a patient recovers we have ways of analyzing their health. Sustained flight and ability to evade capture is definitely part of what we look for!

A small blood sample lets us know how things are going physiologically. In order to be released, a patient needs to have plenty of oxygen-transporting red blood cells!

The moment of release is always quite thrilling. After 6 days in care, this owl was ready to go back to Smith River!

Birds flying away is a very gratifying sight.

This Barn Owl’s rescue, treatment and release was the result of a dedicated team of staff and volunteers working across two counties and scores of miles. Every aspect of care, from the medicine to the gasoline spent in transport, was made possible by community support. In these difficult times, when so much needs our attention – elections, fire disasters and more – your gift, no matter the size, is critical to our survival. Please help. Contribute something today! Thank you!!!

photos/video: Bird Ally X/ Laura Corsiglia

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