Video! Pelican, Chickadees, Raccoons and Finches, plus an important plea for help

Posted on September 29, 2018 by Monte Merrick

We’re at that time of year again when our coffers are depleted by our annual wild baby season, exacerbated this year by our record setting caseload! Nearly 1000 wild neighbors cared for already and still 3 months to go before the year ends! We need your help! Our goal: $10,000 by Halloween! Donate here if you already know you want to help, otherwise check out these videos presenting various patients from this very busy Summer…

Also, BAX is still in the middle of an avian botulism outbreak response at the Lower Klamath Basin Wildlife Refuge! Please help us meet the costs of caring for hundreds of impacted waterfowl there! Nearly 300 birds successfully treated and released so far!

Rescued! The Luckiest Unlucky Raccoon Ever!

Posted on September 21, 2018September 23, 2018 by Monte Merrick

We take calls at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center every day regarding a wild animal in trouble somehow. Often we can help over the phone, but sometimes we have to go to the scene. Last Tuesday, a phone call came in just after we finished morning tasks, such as feeding all our patients and cleaning their housing. The caller was distraught: a raccoon had gotten stuck in their warehouse. Somehow he was trapped behind a structural member of the building and the siding. Unsure what to expect, we sent two of our interns Lindsey Miller and Bekah Kline, over to see what they could do. After arriving Lindsey texted this photo:

Trapped at the bottom of a corroded post, unable to climb back the way he came and no way to move forward, if his paws hadn’t been visible it is doubtful that anyone would have ever found this guy. This predicament would have killed him.

The building’s owner drilled into the steel post above where the raccoon was trapped to gain access.

It took less than an hour to make an opening large enough to free the raccoon.

Once the hole was large enough, Lindsey pulled the raccoon up out of his jam.

She and Bekah secured the rescued Raccoon for transport back to HWCC/bax for an evaluation. At this point we hope that he will be in good health, able to be released right away.

The raccoon was uninjured. We offered him some snacks and observed him for a few hours to make sure that he was able to properly use his limbs and was fully capable to return to his free life.

Very near to the warehouse where he was rescued there was a suitable release site. Raccoons live everywhere that we do. Industrial areas, residential neighborhoods, mountain retreats… Raccoons are truly one of our most common wild neighbors, with whom we share so much, including a habit of misadventure.

LIndsey, after releasing the Raccoon she’d helped rescue. Wildlife rehabilitation interns get a pretty remarkable view of the world, not one that many see. Interns, volunteers, staff – all of us spend a lot of our lives looking, or trying hard to look, at the world through the eyes of our patients. We learn to see that the wild is always here, always near. We learn that at our very core of minerals and cells, we are wild too. It’s a simple fact that’s right here to be seen, and raccoons are just the ones to point it out.

Freed from a certain death, thanks to the compassion and the actions of the people who found him, our lucky unlucky Raccoon patient disappeared back into the wilds of Eureka’s first ward, just a few blocks from where he’d been found.

Your support makes rescues like these possible. Not all of our patients are cut out of steel traps, but each of them faced a certain death, caused in nearly every single case by some human invention, were it not for the generous donations you make, that keep our doors opened and telephone turned on. Thank you! And if you’d like to support our work, just click on the donate button! Your gift goes directly to the care of our patients, and efforts to prevent injuries in the first place. Thank you!!

all photos: Bird Ally X

Mule Deer Fawns Released! (Pictures!!)

Posted on September 19, 2018September 19, 2018 by Monte Merrick

Fawn calls are the most difficult. When a compassionate person stumbles across a fawn bedded down near a road, or near a construction site, or some other hazard created by people, and with no doe in sight, it can be very hard to think they should just leave the fawn alone. If they call us, we can usually discover through questions and conversation the situation and determine if the fawn needs care. Convincing a concerned person to put a fawn back in what clearly looks like an unprotected location can be challenging, even though in many cases that is exactly what the fawn and the fawn’s mother need. Often however, there is no way to put the fawn back. The caller got the fawn from someone who got the fawn from someone, or a dog dragged the fawn to the porch and no one knows from where, or the person has had the fawn at their house for many days and now the mother is no longer nearby – in these situations, it often means a perfectly healthy family is broken up, but there is nothing we can do but raise the fawn as an orphan. But no matter how difficult these calls can be, the worst is when it is clearly obvious that the fawn needs help. The worst are when the fawn is lying next to her mother, who is dead, hit by a car or a truck.

[Our fawns are all Black-tailed Deer, a subspecies of Mule Deer, the deer of the West]

Fawns who are truly orphaned seem to be traumatized when they arrive at our facility. Sometimes it can take two days before the fawn will express any interest in a bottle of milk-replacer. Convincing a traumatized fawn to take a bottle of milk is the same task as consoling a heartbroken child, so that he can eat, sleep, and resume his life. In a way it forces the wildlife care provider to form a bond with the newly admitted fawn, an idea that is at the very opposite of wildlife rehabilitation. Keeping wild patients wild, with a healthy fear of people, is as important a piece of our work as providing a proper diet and treating wounds. So warily, we proceed with fawn care.

As soon as a young fawn takes a bottle of milk (in our case, goat milk donated by local goat-keepers – and lots of it! hundreds of gallons! thank you!) we discontinue contact and start to use a bottle rack that puts a barrier between us and our patient. Once a fawn accepts a bottle in a bottle rack, he is ready to join in with our “herd” – the fawns we already have in care who are housed outdoors, and who we rarely see during the four months it takes to wean them from milk to vegetation. But those two days of close contact early on, while the fawn puts them behind her, the care provider cannot forget what it feels like to have a young deer close, who suddenly decides to accept your care and your bottle and drinks hungrily after barely moving from her corner in 48 hours.

[Please help us pay for the expenses of our busiest year ever. Your donation goes directly to the care of our injured and orphaned wild patients. Please, donate today! Thank you!]

In contact only with other fawns, over a period of months our patients are gradually weaned from milk on to vegetation, “browse” we call it, that staff and volunteers collect each day. Young deer eat a lot of leaves! Toward the end of their stay with us this year, we were collecting several wheelbarrow loads each day!

Once weaned and when we are certain that they are eating enough each day to thrive, and their spots are fading fast, we look up from our hectic summer days and see that, yes, indeed it is turning autumnal and a deer release is imminent.

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.

Providing a safe and healthy environment for our wild orphaned patients is a critical part of meeting our mission. Requirements are skill, experience, dedication, hard work and the resources to get it done. We bring what we can to the task, but without your support, your generosity, it would be for nothing. Thank you for making our work possible! Please contribute something today. Each gift matters in the lives of our wild neighbors.

All photos: Bird Ally X

One last picture:

This fawn, burned in the Carr Fire near Redding in July was brought to HWCC/bax for treatment. Sadly, after several days in care, this brave youngster succumbed to her injuries. She tried hard. We’ll always remember her.

To Date, the Busiest Year in HWCC History (the times they are a-changin’)

Posted on August 31, 2018August 31, 2018 by Monte Merrick

More patients have been brought to HWCC/bax this year than any other year, so far, and we need your help. Reaching our goal of $12,000 raised by September 15th means our summer expenses will be paid. It means we’ll be able to make necessary repairs and improvements for the coming season and the wintering ducks, geese and seabirds who are our primary patients at this time, as well begin the improvements we need for next summer’s busy baby season, with its untold surprises! Your support is the only thing that makes our work possible. Click here to donate now! Thank YOU!

It’s been a hectic Summer, full of baby Barn Swallows, Vaux’s Swifts, Raccoons, Chestnut-backed Chickadees, baby Barn Owls, Brewer’s Blackbirds, Crows, Black-tailed Deer fawns, Common Murre chicks, an oil spill in Wisconsin and a botulism outbreak on the Klamath Basin Wildlife Refuge.

So far in 2018, at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center we’ve admitted nearly 850 orphaned or injured wild animals. We’ve answered thousands of phone calls helping people choose the best action when struggling to co-exist with our wild neighbors. So far in 2018, we’ve admitted more patients than during any other year in HWCC history, dating back to 1979.
Two baby Common Murres we raised and released this year at HWCC.

For the first time in two years the local Common Murre colonies, who nest on the sea stacks just off shore all along the Redwood coast, had enough successful young fledge (leave the nest) that we actually ended up treating a few who got into trouble. In 2016 and 2017 we admitted no babies at all, so while we never want to see young birds orphaned, the fact that some were separated from their fathers means that others were probably fine, a nice reversal of recent times.

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.

Our two songbird aviaries have never been busier. Right now four Acorn Woodpeckers, found as featherless hatchlings in Hoopa, are nearly ready to release – each eating hundreds of mealworms every day. Barn Swallows, Swainson’s Thrushes, House Finches, Chickadees, Swifts and more have occupied our other aviary. At the peak, we’ve been feeding 20,000 mealworms each week!
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.

16 orphaned Raccoons, now weaned from our milk replacer, learn to hunt, fish, forage and climb in our specially-built raccoon housing. Brought in as orphans found in crawlspaces, or attics, disrupted by construction, or illegal trapping, soon the oldest will be ready for release. Meanwhile, a new litter of “eyes-closed” tiny young raccoons was just admitted at the beginning of this week after their mother was found dead

At the height of our busiest time, we were down a crucial local staff member (co-founder Laura Corsiglia) when three of BAX’s six co-founders responded to an oil spill in Wisconsin as part of Focus Wildlife‘s team, capturing oiled wild animals, providing care, and also monitoring oil at the scene and protecting as best they could other wildlife, primarily birds, from becoming contaminated. Besides traveling to Wisconsin, one of our co-directors even traveled to Holland to help with an oil spill there that had severely impacted swans.
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.

Currently BAX is helping at the Klamath Basin Wildlife Refuge, where a botulism outbreak is causing harm to hundreds of waterfowl and shorebirds. BAX co-director January Bill is managing our emergency response, setting up our field hospital on the refuge, assisted by other BAX co-directors and interns from this summer at HWCC. As of today over 40 ducks are in care, and over 20 have been successfully treated and released. Still, it is feared that conditions that favor botulism may persist until early October. More on this response will be available on our website in the coming days. (want to help botulism victims? follow this link)
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.

It’s been so busy that we haven’t had time to simply stay in touch with our supporters to let them know in depth what’s going on. Staff is strong and committed but we’re also tired. For this reason, among others, the return of students to school is good news for us! Old volunteers who know the ropes are back in town! We’re super glad to see them return to HWCC! They’re a big help at this time! Without the help of volunteers HWCC/bax could not accomplish anything. Our gratitude to our volunteers is immeasurable!

You can be a big help at this time too! It’s normal for us to be scraping the bottom of the barrel at this time of year – as our busy season nears its completion, our incoming resources can’t keep up with the outgoing costs of electricity, rent, water, food, medicine and critical staff. Your support at this time of year is needed more than ever. We need you.

If you can help us reach our goal of $12,000 by September 15, we will be able to close the books on this summer and begin to prepare for the coming season of overwintering seabirds and other common Fall and Winter patients as well as make necessary repairs and expansions for next year’s season. [click here to DONATE NOW]

This year it’s become clear that predictable patterns are askew. We’ve recently admitted a young orphaned fawn from the Bridgeville area – the latest in the season that we’ve admitted such a young deer. Crow fledglings can still be seen as well. We’ve treated less than half the raccoons as last year, but three times the songbirds. While the future is as uncertain as ever, now we must accommodate new rhythms, which means new planning for our capacities, from staffing to housing to the balance in our bank account.

We are in a new normal, as they say. No matter where in the world we work, wildlife rehabilitators are adjusting to a changing environment, and we are sorting it out on the job, as we go. Of course we can’t say what that new normal really is because the wheel’s still in spin and….

All photos: Laura Corsiglia or BAX staff

A Fledgling Hummingbird is Reunited

Posted on August 25, 2018August 25, 2018 by Monte Merrick

Curiosity is the hallmark of childhood. Every day, for the young of any species, is a voyage of discovery. A child outside has no limits but her own between herself and the whole wide world. A young kid turns over rocks, follows a trail that leads under bushes. A boy finds on the ground a tiny buzzing bird and picks the bird up and carries the bird home in his jacket pocket.

Each year during Spring and Summer at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center we admit more than a few young fledgling birds who were picked up by kids and brought to the classroom or brought home. If these birds aren’t injured and we can learn where the kids found them, we try to get them home, back to their parents, and their interrupted lives.

At the end of July, a young Allen’s Hummingbird (Selasphorus sasin), just learning to fly, was found by some children near the school in Samoa, on the peninsula across Humboldt Bay from Eureka. The tiny bird was in good health, without injury. After some careful questioning of the kids’ mother, we had an idea where the young hummingbird was found by the young human. So we set out in search of the bird’s parents.

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.

One of the great joys of wildlife rehabilitation is the chance to reunite families. Too often we aren’t able to get young back with their parents. In those cases we have good practices that help us raise healthy juveniles for release, but we don’t kid ourselves. NO one is a better hummingbird parent than a hummingbird’s parent. Making wild families whole again is as important a component of our work as the care we provide and the injuries we prevent through consultation and education.

What follows is a series of photos of the adults repeated trips to feed and care for the young bird that they nearly lost.

Caring for injured wildlife, helping resolve conflicts between human concerns and the needs of wild animals, reuniting wild families: each of these are a critical part of the work we do – work your support makes possible. So far, 2018 has been the busiest year HWCC has ever had in its 39 year history. We need your support now more than ever. Please, help us help our wild neighbors.

A Mid-Summer Day’s Reality

Posted on July 14, 2018July 15, 2018 by Monte Merrick

On any day of the Summer, our busiest season, we rarely know in advance which new patients will be admitted. The phone rings, a car rolls up our driveway, someone carries a cardboard box through the door. What’s inside?

Yesterday the boxes held a fledgling White-crowned Sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys)who was chewed up by a housecat, a River Otter (Lontra canadensis) from Crescent City who’d died on the trip south to our clinic, a Common Murre (Uria aalge) found on the beach near Fort Bragg with a broken wing, a nestling Western Gull (Larus occidentalis) who’s “rescuers” kept him for most of his life. He was found in mid-June just after hatching and held four weeks before help was sought.

Like the River Otter, many patients die before we can help them, while many more are too badly injured to ever regain their wild freedom and are treated humanely, ending pain and misery. And of course, we admit patients everyday who need our care, who respond to our treatments, and who recover and return to the wild.

So far this year we are running about 2% above 2017, our busiest year to date, and we’ve just crossed the mid-year point. We’ve admitted about 620 animals for care in 2018. And our pace continues. Today we admitted four baby bats and one raccoon who were driven to our Bayside clinic from southern Mendocino County.

But for all of our out-of-area patients, the top ten locations from where our patients come are all solidly in the heart of Humboldt County. McKinlyeville, Arcata, and Eureka combined are where 70% of our patients so far this year have come.

The top ten locations where our wild patients where found.

A lot has already happened this year. We’ve admitted, cared for and released over two dozen Mallards, several baby songbirds, and over forty young Opossums. And right now we have over 70 wild animals in care.

Mallard ducklings released in June 2018

Our Spring fundraiser in May reached 50% of our goal of $25,000. Thank you to everyone who contributed! While we missed our mark by a wide margin, nevertheless we did raise over $12,000 which we immediately converted to raccoon milk replacer, eggs, vegetables, electricity, water, rent and more. We’re asking again. We’re going to admit another 600 animals this year. To be ready for them, to provide the proper care, the proper foods, the appropriate medicines, the experienced attention, we need your help. Without you we literally will cease to exist. Please donate today! Every mid-Summer day at our clinics different from the others. No two days are the same, and our patients are diverse and largely unpredictable. Yet, in another sense, each day is like every other. Each day we open our doors and we answer our phone. Each day we provide the care that we can and relieve as much suffering as possible. Each day we help some on to the next world, treat some who we believe we can help with a second chance and we work to prepare orphaned wildlife of any species,from Quail to Rabbits, care and education so that they can return to their wild and free birthright. Each day we succeed with some, and our days are filled with successful releases of our patients back to freedom. We’ll leave with this series of wild patients who got their second chance., thanks to your generous support.

***

An Osprey found wounded and unable to fly along the Trinity River in Hoopa, rescued and brought to our clinic by Hoopa Tribal Forestry staff (you guys rock!) need enough time to recover in our care, to regain her flightm, her sense of purpose, and to demand to be returned to her beloved river valley.

One of our dedicated HWCC//bax interns prepares to release the Osprey along the bank of the Trinity River.

Into the sky!

And away!

From the mountians to the sea in the course of the day: Early in May we admitted two juvenile Brown Pelicans. Fearing that this might be the beginning of another bad year like we saw in 2011 and 2012 with these iconic West Coast birds, we ramped up our readiness. However, unlike the rest of the Californian coast, we thankfully did not see a high mortality rate among juvenile Pelicans in our region.

After a long recovery, the door to wild freedom is opened!

Some part of us always soars with our patient.

In the last 7 months we’ve treated 18 Barn Owls at HWCC/bax, including these two young ruffians! We’d already been caring for the larger of these two nestling Barn Owl chicks when the the smaller one came to us from Lost Coast. As it turns our he’d fallen from a nest box that HWCC had installed nearly 20 years before! The young owlet was in good health so we prepared to return him to his nest when we realized that the family he was going back to would do a much better job raising his older hospital buddy. So we sent both young owls back to the barn by the edge of the sea. 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 into the great wide open.

Ruth places the birds back in the box…

Storm Petrels, tiny seabirds barely larger than a Robin, are frequent visitors to our region. This small cousin of the Albatross, was found in a gas station parking lot in Crescent City after a foggy night. It’s likely the bird was disoriented in the fog and landed on wet pavement mistaking it for the nearby ocean or harbor.

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!

As the season proceeds we’ll be asking for your support regularly. The 1200 wild animals who we admit for care each year, as well as the thousands of others who we help over the phone, wouldn’t be heard at all without you and your generous support. Please, donate today! Thank you!

all photos: Laura Corsiglia/ bird ally x

VIDEO: Wild Babies 2018: URGENT! Your help needed!

Posted on April 30, 2018May 3, 2018 by Monte Merrick

We live in a time when normal cycles are thrown off kilter; when our climate is unpredictable and in its place all we have is the weather. But amid all this uncertainty, one thing is certain: the Wild still struggles to survive and thrive, even if the world has gone mad. Adult animals still raise their young each Spring, and likewise our human-built world still presents them the usual challenges. Mother raccoons are still trapped and their babies orphaned. House cats still kill birds who leave behind a clutch of hungry nestlings. Ducklings still get separated from their mother when they try to cross the streets to reach rivers, ponds and bays.

[Scroll down for video]

In the best of times, our Spring baby season is hectic, overworked and the most expensive part of our year. In the worst of times, it still is, but the stressors are increased. No matter what the situation, we have our work to do. Yet as predictable as our increased caseload is, each year we struggle to cover our costs. Each year we start the baby season already under the gun: underfunded, with our cupboards nearly bare. This year we need to make a change. We need to secure the resources we’ll need to get us the next 5 months. If past years are an indication, between now and September we’re going to admit nearly 700 patients, answer over 7000 phone calls. We’re going to feed over 1000 pounds of fish, over 300 pounds of squash, over 200 pounds of milk replacer and use $2500 worth of electricity.

Our goal is to raise $25,000 to help cover the costs of our season and provide a buffer against any emergency that arises.

We’re not going to do this without your support! In this video, Humboldt Wildlife Care Center director, Monte Merrick takes you on a video tour of our facility and makes a plea for your support. We can’t do it without you! Thank you!

A Long Road to the Sky, a Nestling Northern Spotted Owl Makes it Home.

Posted on April 7, 2018April 7, 2018 by Monte Merrick

It was at the end of June 2017 when we got a call at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center from a local team of biologists who were banding Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) nestlings deep in the forest along the Trinity River. They had a nestling owl with an injured wing. They couldn’t leave him in the nest, and they wanted to know if we were able to treat him. Of course we said that we could. The nestling owl was brought in to our clinic later that day.

Upon admission, we opened the transport box and found fourteen ounces of fuzzy feathered fury. Indignant, terrified and presumably hungry, the small wild owlet whose short life had taken a very terrible turn, was not interested in making life easier for anyone. He struggled frantically as we moved him from the box to our initial housing. This one was going to be a handful, no doubt about it. We hoped his exam would reveal a simple injury that would heal easily with non-invasive treatment.

First day in care, the young owl right before our initial exam. We don’t know how severe his injury is yet and we’re hoping for the best.

A nestling owl’s first day in care, during admission exam.

Unfortunately, this was not the case. The injury, a fracture of a digit, was severe enough that surgery would be required. We wrapped the young bird’s wing with a supportive bandage, and with the approval of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, made arrangements for the youngster to travel far out of his range. We sent him to Morro Bay, 9 driving hours south, where BAX co-founder and skilled avian orthopedic surgeon, Shannon Riggs, DVM, is the director of animal care at Pacific Wildlife Care.

Northern Spotted Owls are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act as well as the California Endangered Species Act (currently being petitioned to be moved into the more urgent “endangered” designation). Threatened and Endangered Species get special consideration. We notify the state and federal agencies whenever we admit a patient who is under this kind of legal protection. Here at BAX, we support the most urgent protection of the habitat that these icons of our ancient forests require.

Even with surgery needed, we still hoped that the young bird would make it back to the wild in time to be rejoined with his siblings and his parents. Birds generally heal much more quickly than mammals, and we were optimistic that within 3 weeks, he would have recovered from his injury and treatment and be able to go home.

But an easy fate was not this owl’s destiny. In every situation he fought for his life out of mortal terror. It’s a hallmark of many species that a major milestone in the life of juveniles as they grow toward adulthood is learning to conserve energy. Juveniles try anything, no matter how much effort is needed, often failing. A successful adult has learned the importance of energy conservation. As an example an adult Brown pelican plunge dives in neat straight lines and will abort mid-dive if chances of successfully catching the fish worsen. Wasted energy doesn’t help fill the belly. Meanwhile juveniles thrash, and flap and hit the water from any angle every time they dive. The awkward failures of juveniles often seem comical, but those who don’t learn to conserve energy and wait for the auspicious moment may not survive to adulthood.

This same juvenile headlong rush into action applies to attempts to defend themselves from threats. Whether struggling to escape or struggling to strike out, juveniles are simply much more of a handling concern than adults. Adults have learned to assess the situation – perform a basic cost-benefit analysis – before taking action, conserving energy for the moment with most likely chance for success. A juvenile owl, terrified and with talons, may launch himself or herself into battle with sure defeat, simply due to inexperience. Add to this problem that all captivity is a threat to wild animals, no matter how safe for our patients we try to build our facilities, a juvenile with only fear and the desire to get away is especially at risk form captivity related inkjuries.

This owl, as soon as his initial injury had healed, seized an unguarded moment as he was waking up from anesthesia after a procedure and flung himself from his recovery chamber to the floor, breaking another bone! Fortunately it wasn’t a life-ending injury, but it was a setback – this meant that the owlet might not make it back to his nest before his family would be dispersed.

Adding to the injury, this owlet never accepted his captive fate, and struggled against it daily. This had caused feather damage, which needed to be addressed before he could be released.

Because we often admit patients who are so badly injured all we can do is help end their suffering, we do have access to donor feathers. We had a complete set of Spotted Owl flight feathers that had been taken from an owl that had been hit by a vehicle and brought to our clinic. We sent these feathers to Morro Bay where they were used to temporarily replace those that had been damaged by this fierce young owl who never says die.

Learn more on how donor feathers are used in a process called imping here.

Soon the owl was flying. He’d recovered from his two fractures, his damaged feathers had been replaced, he’d gotten older and it was time. For a couple of months the owl was provided with flight training in Morro Bay. Dr. Riggs was cautious regarding his flight capabilities and wanted to be sure that his injuries had healed well enough that he would be able to keep himself aloft once free.

At the beginning of the new year, at last we began to make plans for his return north, to HWCC.

There was one last obstacle to overcome before this owl could be released back to his rightful freedom. We needed to know that he could hunt. So far, he’d only eaten the food his parents had brought him while he was in the nest, and the thawed frozen mice that he’d gotten during his treatment. A predator needs to be able to hunt as much as see, fly or any other crucial activity. A Spotted Owl who cannot recognize live prey, can’t find, kill and eat small rodents, is not going to thrive in the wild. Six months after the initial injury, we now prepared our aviary here in Humboldt for the young owl’s return to our facility and we began to strategize a program of hunter’s education.

In order to respect privacy, reduce stress, and ensure that the live prey were not associated with the human caregivers who entered the aviary, a special feeding door was installed in the aviary so that mice and rats could be offered from our unseen hand.

At first we offered them in a very exposed container. We wanted the owl, just like any novice student in any subject, to have early successes that would build confidence for when the circumstances were more difficult.

Our basic strategy was to provide the setting, the stimulus and the opportunity and allow his own instincts to lead him. Once he mastered the art of taking a live mouse as prey that had no where to run or hide, we added materials that the mouse could use to avoid being seen. At the same time, we discontinued all dead food items. The owl had to survive on what he caught and ate. We monitored for weight loss, and of course we tracked the number of mice as they went missing.

After ten days, we gave the mice free rein in the aviary. Our aviaries are built to keep other animals out, including mice and rats, so, like a boat that holds water in as well as out, we were confident that the mice could not escape. But they could burrow in a few inches of leaf and soil before they hit a mouse-proofed aviary floor. We have landscape areas of natural plants in our aviary that the mice used. Often there were times when staff was unable to see the mice. Our young owl didn’t have that problem. His weight, now that he was fully grown, stayed stable. For three weeks this owl fed himself on the mice he captured and killed. At this point we were confident in his abilities.

It may seem obvious that a hunter needs to be able to hunt, but it is not without sorrow that we took these mice to their end as dinner for an owl. But we are by vocation and avocation wildlife rehabilitators, and wildlife rehabilitators do not argue wth nature. We help Nature heal using Nature’s own methods as much as we can. In order to treat and release orphaned wild predators, we must provide them the opportunity and environment in which they can to learn to hunt.
Making it a little harder: grasses and other materials that the mice can use to hide from the owl are added to the bin.

After our patient was successful at hunting the mice in the tubs, we removed the tubs. For over a week the young owl thrived in this scenario, even gaining weight in the last week in care.

We built this aviary, designed by BAX co-founder January Bill, with the intention that it be an excellent environment for both recovering adult raptors and learning orphaned raptors. We’ve had it for five years now, it’s a critical part of our program, having helped provide an environment that encourages recovery with excellent results and hundreds of successful patients.

In our aviary our patients have a pastoral view at the mouth of the Jacoby Creek watershed. We strive to protect and respect their wild nature and offer them all the solace and comforts of their wild home that we can. Our young owl patient nearly always chose this location to roost.

Moments before his last exam. After three weeks of only eating what he found for himself, we are preparing for his release back to the area where he was originally found, early last summer, 2017.

Staff attempts to net the young bird for his release evaluation.

Fight/flight mechanism mean more when you can actually fly!

Six weeks after this owl returned to his home county, and three weeks after he was fed his last pre-killed mouse, he was in the best shape of his young life, – his wild personality intact, his chances as good as they were ever going to be. We took him back to the Trinity River, close to his original nest site, and restored his freedom. Will he ever re-unite with his parents or siblings? Not likely. His family almost certainly dispersed at the end of last Summer, his siblings independent by September. Now he gets his belated chance, too.

A last, low light view of our young graduate of hunting school – now he fades back into the surrounding and surrounded wild, home where he belongs.

It was quite the journey for this young fellow traveler of Earth’s travails* to reach his final act of fledging, to leave not his nest but his captivity. While it would have been better had he never been injured, his time in care, although fraught with setbacks, and times of deep anxiety over his fate, was beneficial. We learned a lot about providing the type of care this patient required, specialized, an individual with his own personality, fierce, aggressive, ready for the terms of the wild – the blaze of reality – where it’s always a matter of life and death.

Your support keeps our door open and our lights on. Your support builds and maintains our aviaries, our pools, our incubators, our orphaned mammal nursery, our baby bird room. In these troubling environmental times, your support lets us know that our work has meaning and value. Your support reminds us that, like us, our neighbors love the wild. Thank you for being here for us. And if you’d like to help, please, use this button to make a donation today! Thank you!

all photos Laura Corsiglia/BAX

*From Henry Beston’s classic, The Outermost House, (1928)

“Touch the earth, love the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and the dawn seen over the ocean from the beach.

When the Pleiades and the wind in the grass are no longer a part of the human spirit, a part of very flesh and bone, man becomes, as it were a kind of cosmic outlaw, having neither the completeness and integrity of the animal nor the birthright of a true humanity.

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

How to Survive Being Hit by a Car; a Robin’s Story

Posted on March 11, 2018 by Monte Merrick

While an accurate count is hard to come by, it is estimated that as many as a million wild animals are killed on US roads and highways every day – close to 400 million (over 200 million birds alone) of our wild neighbors killed by cars and trucks each year.

At Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, BAX over 10% of our patients are known to have been hit by a car. As any casual observer can attest, the number of wild animals seen by the side of the road is overwhelmingly huge. So far this year, we’ve admitted just over 90 patients, 14 of whom were known to have been struck by a vehicle. Of those 14, only two were able to be released. One of those two, was a lucky American Robin (Turdus migratorius).

Admitted on a Saturday afternoon after being found struggling on the ground along the Indianola cutoff between Eureka and Arcata, the young male was fortunate that none of his bones had been fractured by the impact.

After an initial dose of anti-inflammatory medicine, to ease pain and help him recover, our patient spent his first night indoors. The next day we moved him to an outdoor aviary where we could observe his behavior and assess him for release.

After two days outdoors, his reflexes were returned, he was harder to capture, and he’d even gained a couple of grams, courtesy the mealworms we provided for his nutrition.

We had a few Robins pass through our clinic while he was in care. To distinguish between patients, temporary leg bands are used…

… which are removed prior to release. And this Robin checked out great after 4 days in care.

Near to where he was found is a nice secluded bit of forest, safe from cars, that will allow him to reacquaint himself with his freedom at his own pace.

Immediately he left the box and perched above the release crew in nearby branches.

Working his way farther and farther from his former captor-helpers…

… until at last he takes to the sky and leaves…

This Robin is one of the very few lucky birds who survive being hit by a vehicle. And without your support that keeps our doors open, he wouldn’t have survived either. In a world where shocking violence takes the lives of so many, so regularly, we often forget that our wild neighbors endure a commonplace slaughterhouse that we humans built and regard as nearly a human right – to smooth pavement, to individual travel that moves 20 times faster than our own legs can carry us, to not be concerned with the toll it takes on other lives.

Thanks to your support, we are here for those victims of the highways, to help in whatever we can – from ending the suffering of those who’ve been horribly battered but are still alive, to providing care for those who can recover, to helping keep our wild neighbors in mind – to reminding our motorist neighbors to slow down, to see the birds and the mammals who must find ways to cross the asphalt meat grinders we’ve put up all over the world. If you can help us, please do – we operate on a meager budget that wouldn’t exist at all without you. Thanks for helping!

photos: Laura Corsiglia/ BAX

Young Hawk Survives Dog Attack!

Posted on February 28, 2018February 28, 2018 by Monte Merrick

So often we just never really know what happened. A young Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) was found in a backyard in Myrtletown, close to the Fay Slough Wildlife Area, as the crow flies.

The hawk had been caught by a dog. How? Why? Only the hawk and dog know.

The hawk definitely got the worst of it. Besides his very low energy, or lethargy, a condtion that is what had even allowed him to be picked up, a few of his secondary flight feathers were damaged, the broken feathers bleeding significantly. Because of the blood loss, the hawk showed a pronounced anemia at the time he was admitted. Anemia, or a lack of red blood cells, has obvious signs. Pale mucous membranes and general lethargy are two of the most easily seen. Red blood cells primary task is to carry oxygen, critical fuel, to all parts of the body. For a wild animal, living in the non-buffered reality of Nature, lethargy caused by any illness will interfere with necessary, life-sustaining activities, like hunting and eating or evading danger. Anemia is cured by red blood cell production. Like all bodies, the hawk’s body needs food to replace lost cells. Anemic lethargy creates a negative feedback loop with death and dissolution as the only end.

Red-tailed hawks are a common and frequently seen raptor. Their piercing screech is often heard in Summer when parents teach their young to hunt. Many have seen one of these hawks strike prey right next to a highway. The mowed areas of grass around highways are naturally good places to hunt, and no doubt litter from passing cars increases the population of rodents and other species that Red-tailed hawks rely on to survive. We treat many hawks each year who have been hit cars. The neighborhood where this hawk was found means that he’s probably hunted around US 101 at the south end of the safety corridor between Eureka and Arcata. Many Red-tailed hawks and other raptors make use of the fields and wetlands of that area. It’s a dangerous part of the world, full of houses, traffic, pets and poisons. It’s this hawk’s home.

For all the blood and minor soft tissue trauma, there were fortunately no breaks or dislocations,. Finding no other significant injuries, we gave the him a supportive wing wrap, antibiotics, a mild pain reliever, some food and we left him alone for the night.

Within a few days his red blood cells, responding well to the steady supply of thawed rats (you can help us keep rats in stock! click here to donate to our account!), were rebounding. Soon he was able to thermoregulate. As soon as he began regenerating red blood cells his attitude began to improve greatly. His fierceness had never been dimmed but now he was able to do something about it! It wasn’t long before his activity in the protective indoor housing was signaling loud and clear that he was awake and very dissatisfied. We moved him to an outdoor aviary, out of the building, with more space and more privacy, acclimating back the elements, able to begin his recovery of flight, which we thought might take some time..

Immediately, however, the hawk began making very convincing, energetic flights around the aviary. After completing a course of antibiotics and after his red blood cells count was healthy and normal and after he’d been flying around in our aviary for close to two weeks, we took him back to his neighborhood and his wild freedom.

HWCC staff examines the hawk’s injuries.

The moment before capture for a routine exam is very stressful for our patients. We minimize contact as much as possible.

It’s an old joke but we’ll tell it again: This hawk is thinking, “Outside the box!”

A moment in the grass to gather one’s wits…

… and then up to a nearby tree…

… to have a better look…

…around the old neighborhood…

and then off…

… back to his life, on edge of Humboldt Bay.

Like all of our patients, this hawks care, his food, his medicine, his housing, all of it, is possible only becuase of your support. We need your help now. Please donate if you can.

photos: Laura Corsiglia/BAX