Each Autumn, the common sadness of Summer’s end is brightened by the return to our region of many species of aquatic and semi-aquatic birds who find our temperate winters a good place to live away from breeding grounds further North or inland. Many ducks, loons, grebes, and shorebirds arrive here with the rains that turn meadows and mosses green again in a kind of second Spring.
One of the most visible of our winter neighbors is the Aleutian Cackling Goose (Branta hutchinsii). From when they depart in late April and early May bound for the Aleutian Islands to raise their young of the year, until they return in late September and early October, the meadows and pastures of the bottom lands of Humboldt and Del Norte counties can feel very empty. All winter we enjoy the splendor of their melodic high pitched voices as they rise and fall in flocks sometimes numbering in the thousands throughout our winter days.
The higher numbers in their populations is a relief. Aleutians were initially listed as endangered under the 1973 Endangered Species Act, but since their decline was reversed, they were taken of the list in 2001. In fact, their numbers have recovered to the point that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has given waterfowl hunters a special 16 day season late February through early March strictly for the purpose of hunting the geese who use private land in an effort to drive them off, just as tens of thousands of individuals are arriving from around the state in a pre-migration staging here on the North Coast. Pasture land in our region is dedicated to ranching and the geese are seen as direct competitors with beef cattle for grass.
The dates of this year’s waterfowl seasons are posted on our dry erase board at HWCC so that staff is aware of conditions that might threaten wild neighbors. We usually admit one or two geese per year who were shot but not killed or recovered, found near a road, or on the beach. Depending on the nature of the wounds, we’ve been able to treat and release several gunshot victims.
Since 2012, Humboldt Wildlife Care Center/bird ally x has treated 66 Cackling Geese as of November 1, this year. In 2018 alone, so far we’ve treated 19 individuals, 10 in the last two weeks!
While it’s typical that we admit a few cackling Geese at this time of year, the numbers we’re treating this year are clearly spiking up! It’s ordinary for some of the young of the year to meet difficulty when completing their first migration from breeding grounds on the Yukon Delta, say, two thousand miles south to Northern California. All geese use a significant amount of their own muscle-mass to fuel their journey, which is conducted non-stop.
Upon arrival, nourishment is the first order of business. Only those birds who are in excellent condition can make the trip, and only those birds who, through luck, guidance, intelligence, instinct and timing, arrive and find immediate food will survive. Most cackling geese who we admit at this time of year are juveniles, often found on the regions beaches, rolled by the surf. It’s possible that they just couldn’t fly the last leg and resorted to paddling ashore. In any case, a young Cackling goose being rolled in the surf is not going to recover from this dilemma alone.
And that’s where our community comes in. People on the beaches, or in the parks, or even driving along the roads of our region will find geese in trouble, often doing what they can to capture and bring the goose to our clinic in Bayside. Other times people call us and we go out to find the goose. We don’t always find the wild goose on these chases, but usually we do.
Upon admission each goose is given a physical exam and treated for many of the basic problems that all face. They are treated for both internal and external parasites, such as tapeworm and feather lice. While all while animals carry some parasites without a negative impact, a young bird starving death needs all of the calories s/he can get. We make sure to reduce the competition.
Usually each new goose patient we admit comes in cold and dehydrated. Stabilizing the patient is mostly a job for fluids and warmth. We take a small sample of blood of which a rudimentary analysis can let us know basic parameters such as total protein solids in the blood and percentage of red blood cells. This knowledge helps us plan the patient’s recovery, from housing to diet to any additional medications required.
HWCC/bax intern Brooke Brown (left) is learning from wildlife rehabilitator Lucinda Adamson on how to procure a blood sample from a newly admitted Cackling Goose patient.
After a day in a climate controlled environment, provided with a regular schedule of warmed fluids delivered orally, or intravenously or subcutaneously depending on the needs of the patient, often the debilitated geese will be ready to be housed outdoors with access to water. Eating, maintaining a consistently good body temperature and restored hydration are the main criteria for moving forward in treatment at this time. Until then though, it’s strictly indoors where caloric expenditure is kept as small as possible.
Rehabilitator Stephanie Owens gives a brand new Cackling Goose patient the first of series of hydration tube feedings. This method getting fluids into a patient is very reliable as long as the patient is awake and alert and can hold up their own head. Otherwise other routes of delivering fluid therapy are needed.
Warmed water is a critical part of our patient’s early treatment, just as a cup of hot tea would aid a lost hiker.
Our treatment board… if you can’t decipher it, it says that we have 5 Cackling Geese (CACK) in care, 3 housed outdoors in an aviary and 2 indoors in “room 3”.
Once stable and ready, the geese are moved to an outdoor aviary, housed together and left alone for longer periods of time between checks. It takes between two and three weeks for a cold, emaciated, dehydrated goose to recover well enough to be released. During that time we keep them well fed, in as stress-free of an environment as we can create, that still allows us to provide care. Slowly, yet really pretty quickly when you think about it, our patients go from cold, wet sandy and dangerously close to death to flying, strong and anxious to return to their wild lives! Healing and recovery are as common as life and just as wondrous.
Being housed with others of their kind is a comfort to animals in care who prefer flocks. Each on of these geese is helping the others recover.
It’s a wonderful feeling to step into the aviary with breakfast and see that someone is now string enough to fly. It’s just a matter of time now. Only the stress of captivity could cause anything to go wrong at this point.
With heat support, fluid therapy, medicines, food, and an environment built to encourage recovery, a time comes when we evaluate for release. Each goose is given an examination similar to the one they each received upon admission. The differences are astounding – a typical emaciated goose gains 300-400 grams in care – going from 900 at admission to 1200 or 1300 at release. Another look at their blood work is important. The presence of red blood cells in sufficient quantity indicates that the patient has a much improved oxygen carrying capacity, critical for strong, high altitude endurance flyers like Cackling Geese. As long as all of the parameters are met, the only thing left to do is take the patient out to the bottomlands and find a flock of geese… open the box and let nature take her course!
Proper housing for all our patients of myriad species is the foundation of the care we provide. Our aviaries are critical for the care that we provide.
A small amount of blood is drawn one last time.
An open box!
And take to the sky…
And then the young goose, on his second chance (thanks to your support!) joins in the flock and is our patient no more.
We don’t know exactly why we’re admitting so many more Cackling Geese this year compared to other years. It’s a mystery that may take a while ti understand, a few years before a more clear pattern emerges. What we do know is that we have commitment to be here each and every door for them and for all of our region’s wildlife in trouble. It’s been a hard year. And we need your help more than ever. Please donate and help us give innocent injured animals a second chance. Thank You!!!
all photos: Laura Corsiglia and bird ally x
BAX staff carefully places the carrier down so that our skunk patient can exit with ease once the lid is open.
The first American Wigeon was released several days before the other two. She made short work out of getting hid in the vegetation of the pond.
Thick with duckweed and other food, the Arcata Marsh proved her a soft landing at release.
About thirty feet away scores of wintering Wigeons make use of the Marsh as well.
Providing a hiding place for our patients lowers their captivity-caused stress and helps them focus on recovering. This female Wigeon lurks behind her blind, hoping to avoid capture.
Of course, when that capture is intended for healing and release, we take liberties that ordinarily would be unethical, handling and housing without consent.
Rudimentary blood analysis will provide data that confirms our impression that she is ready for release. Here a small sample is collected to be given a ride in the centrifuge so that we can measure percentage of red blood cells – as the carriers of oxygen through the body, they are critical for all aspects of life. We can also get indications of possible unseen infections and other maladies which can affect total protein solids in the plasma that is separated from the red blood cells, which we also measure.
Here we examine a previously swollen foot to see if the problem has resolved well enough that she will be fine in her natural environment. The answer was yes!
About a week after being transferred from Tulelake, the two last Wigeons were released in to the same pond as the first Wigeon. Each bird is her own person and does what she wants. The first Wigeon we released dove for cover in the vegetation, this one flew as quickly away as she could.
The third Wigeon swam away, accompanied by a Mallard who we’d also treated at HWCC and released that day.
The Arcata Marsh is one of the gems of our neck of the woods. Knowing that these birds are making there way with quality food available and in the freely-chosen company of their kind after their long ordeal is very relieving. The habitat of our home is not just for show. It’s the actual living place of our wild neighbors. It’s our home too. Our wild neighbors aren’t just like some new family who recently moved here from Atlanta but who will soon be moving to Seattle. They are our kin. We have the same needs. Our shared home is worth loving and respecting.
HWCC volunteer Katharine (l) and 2018 Intern Desiree Vang (r) are displaying the typical expressions worn by members of their species who are experiencing fulfilling joy. Warm smiles. Successful releases of our wild patients are like that.
One fawn per crate, each is brought to the release site. We are lucky that a good release site, protected against hunting and full of choice deer habitat is remote but not that far from our clinic. A nearby pond, forest and meadow, and the presence of a deer herd make this a great spot for our youngsters to begin their second chance at wild freedom!
It’s a great moment when the crate’s door is opened and your patient immediately puts distance between you and her!
Once safely away, a newly released fawn stops to consider the change of scenery.
Another fawn bolts for the cover of the trees.
Another fawn turns to assess the danger her caregivers pose…
Six fawns were released!
After this fawn reached the pond he stopped to cautiously consider us.
Zoomed in, it’s easy to see that this guy just doesn’t trust us, even though we delivered him over 200 bottles of milk and scores of wheelbarrow loads of leaves. His mistrust is a terrific sign of our success!
Nothing brings smiles to HWCC/bax volunteers faces like giving our wild neighbors in need a second chance at freedom!
A healthy, independent wild youngster rushing to meet her own destiny on nature’s terms… this is always the best view to be had.
Two baby Common Murres we raised and released this year at HWCC.
House finches, whose nest was destroyed by badly timed pruning, were raised as hatchlings until old enough to be released. Still on the formula that we feed these strict granivores (seed-eaters) in this photo, soon they were finding their own food and wanted nothing more to do with us.
We raised two Western Tanager babies this year, the first we’ve had in our care in over 7 years! (and that’s HWCC/bax’s indispensible Assistant Rehabilitation Manager, Lucinda Adamson’s capable hand offering the worm!)
When workers at PG&E replaced an old utility pole in Blue Lake they were surprised to find five nestling Chestnut-sided Chickadees in a cavity at the top end of the pole. For three weeks we made frequent trips to the aviary to make sure they had all the mealworms they could swallow.
Four Brewer’s Blackbirds were found along a drainage ditch in Loleta. While such an odd place is a normal nesting area for these birds, the closeness to the road was more than the compassionate rescuer could take. Unable to find their parents, we raised them until they could be fostered to a flock of adults of their species near our facility.
A nest of Acorn Woodpeckers, above as featherless hatchlings and then as their colors begin to show. Now they are mostly self-feeding and are close to being releasable.
Because our patients need nutritious, healthy food, and because everyone deserves to be treated with respect, we offer the mealworms we feed out as good a life as possible in the short time they’re themselves, before they become songbirds, raccoons, opossums, or doves.
A very young orphaned raccoon is fed a milk replacer with a feeding tube. From when their eyes open until they are weaned usually takes about six weeks, which is followed by another ten weeks learning how to be adult raccoons. Staff and volunteers who tend the raccoons in their housing call themselves “raccoonnookkeepers”, which sets a record in the English language for number of consecutive double letters (6!).
In our raccoon housing, fish is presented in an artificial river, fruit is hung on tree branches, eggs are hidden in fake nests, all so that our young orphans have a chance to learn what they need to know in order to succeed as adults in the wild.
Two BAX co-founders, Laura Corsiglia (left) and January Bill, while scouting release sites on the shore of Lake Superior for rehabilitated oiled wildlife in Wisconsin.
BAX co-directors Marie Travers (left), January Bill (center) and HWCC/bax intern Courtney Watson (right) admit a Northern Pintail suffering from botulism at the Klamath Basin Wildlife Refuge.
BAX co-director and co-founder January Bill leads the effort to rehabilitate botulism impacted waterfowl and shorebirds at the Klamath Basin Wildlife Refuge.
Our admission examination found no injuries or problems – just a healthy fledgling bird who happened to be seen by a curious young kid while vulnerable during first flight attempts.
The dune forest where the young bird had been found.
Adult hummingbirds were seen immediately in the area.
We placed the fledgling on a nearby branch
Our reunite team backed up to allow the adults to feel more comfortable in approaching the young bird. 
In moments an adult female came down the fledgling and began to offer food.
The top ten locations where our wild patients where found.
Mallard ducklings released in June 2018
One of our dedicated HWCC//bax interns prepares to release the Osprey along the bank of the Trinity River.
Into the sky!
And away!
After a long recovery, the door to wild freedom is opened!
Some part of us always soars with our patient.
It was amazing how quickly the larger owlet accepted and formed an alliance with his new roommate after the smaller guy was admitted.
Boxing the young owls up for travel. Transport of wild animals is fraught with difficulties. We’re as cautious as we can be…
As close to paradise as some will ever get, a small farm by the edge of the North Pacific Ocean. Our two Bran Owl patients will learn to fly here…
HWCC/bax volunteer coordinator, Ruth Mock, brings the owls and supplies to the scene of the reunite.
The active nest holds other small owls. Soon they will all be fledged 
Ruth places the birds back in the box…
Checking the feather condition of the small seabird after 2 days in our 1000 liter salt pool.
Cleared for release!
Another ocean voyager leaves the safe harbor for destiny!
