Category: wildlife impacts

A rare, but regular, patient: Leach’s Storm Petrel Released

Posted on by Monte Merrick

A Storm-petrel is not a bird that you will automatically see just because you signed up for 3 score and ten on good old Mother Earth. Smaller than an American Robin (Turdus migratorius) but spending all of their lives at sea, Leach’s Storm-petrels (Hydrobates leucorhous), the tiny cousins of Albatross, Fulmars, Shearwaters and other tubenoses (Procellariiformes) are infrequently observed, yet at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center we admit one or two every year, and in 2019 and 2024 we admitted dozens after bad ocean conditions brought many ashore.

At the end of the August, this little giant rode a fishing vessel back into port at Crescent City. Volunteers drove the storm-petrel down to our facility in Manila. After a few days enjoying our saltwater pool, they were in good shape, ready to get back to sea. We release these birds at the end of the day, because their small size makes them easy prey close to shore where gulls hunt for dinner. While we don’t begrudge gulls the right to eat, we prefer to not see our patients munched on as they re-orient themselves to their new condition of freedom.

Your support makes it possible for us to serve an enormous region that extends from Northern Mendocino County to Southern Oregon and from Weaverville to the middle of the Sea! Thank you for keeping our doors open! And if you can, please support us now, as we wind up our busy season and prepare for the wintering seabirds who are surely on their way!

DONATE

Share

Big Day!!! Six releases and a Visit from the OWCN!

Posted on by Monte Merrick

A Really Big Day at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center/bird ally x!!!

Thanks to the Oiled Wildlife Care Network, for over thirty years of responding to wildlife injured and displaced by oil spills!

Thanks for coming to see us! In the video I failed to adequately acknowledge the people who came to visit! Rats! But we’ll take care of it here: Victoria Hall, the new Director, Frankie Lill, wildlife planning specialist (and haiku enthusiast!), Danny Vickers, wildlife planning specialist, and Wendy Massey, a friend and colleague I’ve known since my first oil spill response, 23 years ago, then called the San Mateo Mystery Spills, now known as the Luckenbach spills, from the sunken (1953) SS Jacob Luckenbach.

Showing off our duckling pond to the OWCN folks. (which by the way was funded by you, our supporters!)

Your support is makes us able to be a part of this incredible network of care providers ready to jump into action for oil spill-impacted wild animals. And right now, at the end of Summer, and our very busy season, we need you to keep us even keeled and underway! Thank you for your past current and future support!

DONATE

Share

At the End of the Day

Posted on by Monte Merrick

A quick video made at day’s end, the beginning of September, reflecting on our current state and our needs….


Your support makes everything we do possible. We need you. Thank you

DONATE

Share

A Summer of Many Baby Crows!

Posted on by Monte Merrick
Pink mouth? Blue eyes? Yep that’s a baby crow!
So adorable…
Weight checks are a crucial part of baby care!
In the aviary…
Release evaluation!
Flies like a champ!
Ready to roll!
Out of the box forever!
Into the woods, back to the wild, resumption of freedom!

Until this year, our statistically normal number of Crows (technically, American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) that we admit annually has fluctuated between 20 and 30, with about 75% of them being juveniles, fledglings, nestlings or hatchlings – in other words only about 1 in 4 are adults. But this year has been extraordinary. So far, we’ve already admitted 53 crows, and an astonishing 87% of them have been this year’s babies!

Crows are perhaps the best animal ever to come down the pike. What a thrill it is to help them reach their adulthood! It’s a shame of course, as all orphans are a tragedy – yet the privilege of helping these incredible beings overcome the horrifying setback of losing their parents is a joy beyond compare.

As is always the case with our patients, their wildness, their freedom and their autonomy must be respected. It’s good for people to practice this kind of respect toward other living beings in their daily lives. It’s salvific.

Often, juvenile crows make a few mistakes – perfectly normal for adventurous and bright adolescents to run astray – which separate them from their family. In such cases, if they come to us, we can sometimes get them home. Re-uniting a crow baby with crow parents is the best possible outcome. Of course that’s not always possible. In which case, we have an aviary and diet that will have to do, until they can be released, able to be independent, able to be an adult crow. Learning how to do this effectively is a life-long journey.

What pays for the process, what makes the process possible, what gives these incredible and intelligent wild neighbors the second chance they need and deserve – no matter how many we admit! – is your support. Thank you for getting us this far. Thank you for taking us further.

DONATE

Share

Wood Duck orphans get Second Chance!

Posted on by Monte Merrick

New babies only a few days old
Weight checks are a regular part of care
In the aviary
Duckweed is a blessing.
Frightened by human care providers, the ducklings huddle in fear.
Release evaluation day!
On the way to freedom
A flotilla of Wood Ducks sets sail into their wild and free destiny!

In mid-May, a mother Wood Duck (Aix sponsa) crossing US 101 near King Salmon was killed by a car and her babies scattered into the adjacent wetland. This has been a common occurrence for the last hundred years, ever since the rise of the worst thing to ever happen to the real world – the automobile. We posted a story about the babies in May. (which you can see here)

After six weeks in care, and many weight checks, and a lot of duckweed, the babies were at last old enough to be on their own. We took them to a nice little pond where they could get accustomed to their restored freedom and when ready, launch into the sky.

Your support, of course, is why we had staff at the ready to rescue these orphaned Wood Ducks. Your support bought the heat lamp and paid for the laundry soap that cleaned the linens we use in the duckling care. Your support provided the waterfowl aviary all our injured and orphaned ducks, geese, gulls, egrets and more use to recover. Thank you! You make our work possible. If you can please support us now. As Summer winds down our coffers are empty and we still have nearly 50 patients in care, and we still have another 400 animals we are likely to admit before the year ends. Please help.

DONATE

Share

New Wild Review v6e3 Taking it Squirrel by Squirrel with Napa Wildlife Center’s Linnaea Furlong.

Posted on by Monte Merrick

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:13:52 — 84.5MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Email | RSS

Join us on New Wild Review for a conversation with Napa Wildlife Rescue’s Director of Animal Care and Operations, Linnaea Furlong. (please check out the awesome work of Napa Wildlife Rescue)

A recent social media post by Linnaea struck a chord with New Wild Review. She wrote:

“It’s surreal, watching all the systems breaking from above in the world, and wondering how it’s going to turn out, but at the same time, now I need to feed baby squirrels, now I need to bathe the raccoon child with mange, now I need to put worms in the glowing orange gapes of phoebes, now I need to train the new hotline person. Things are falling apart and staying the same at once and I am just taking it squirrel by squirrel.”

In our conversation, we talk about what it means to provide care across boundaries during chaotic and dangerous times.

Your support for Bird Ally X, and all of our projects, from Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, to our Botulism Response Team to this podcast, is deeply appreciated. It’s your generosity that makes it all happen. We need you now very much. Please donate if you can.

DONATE

Share

Terrible photos from East Grande Terre Island, Louisiana

Posted on by Monte Merrick

While BP struggles to protect itself from justice, and BP CEO Tony Hayward continues to make a public ass of himself, – as Janet Rubchenko leads NOAA into irrelavancy, the Oil that this industry and the State have loosed upon the world continues to poison and kill.

Share