Want to help us help our wild neighbors in need?

Posted on June 10, 2022June 12, 2022 by Monte Merrick

You can help return an orphaned or injured wild animal to the wild! You can help keep wild families together! You can help keep our facility functional and clean! Volunteers are needed for all tasks. After putting our volunteer program on hold in March of 2020, we’ve been slowly rebuilding it, adding volunteers to our shifts as the pandemic has allowed, and now we are ready to add more.

Volunteers are a crucial element in the field of wildlife rehabilitation. All wildlife rehab facilitities operate on shoestring budgets and without the necessary help from volunteers, we’d never last. The pandemic has been brutal on staff and we are very happy to rebuild our core team of volunteers.

The life of a volunteer: One day you’re helping with an opossum, the next day a Bald Eagle.

Some of the tasks that volunteers help with:

1. Cleaning: First and foremost, from the newest, most inexperienced volunteer to the director of our facility, a major task for all of us is cleaning. Laundry, dishes, sweeping, mopping, sanitizing – these are mission critical in a hospital setting and your experience in your own life will serve here! If you’re new to this kind of maintenance, we can help you and you dont have to get a job in the food service industry to learn it (as many of us did, like me!). We also have to clean the patient housing, which means that you will be trained in how to work around a frightened wild animal, without making the stress much worse.

2. Feeding: Patient food must be prepared at least twice a day. Want to learn what it takes to emulate a diet that a wild diet in the setting of temporary captive care? It’s a great skill to have and it won’t be long before you’lll understand the intricacies, and the principles that support them, of feeding a wild animal a nutritional diet that is familiar and therefore stress reductive.

3. Examinations: Helping staff perform routine examinations of our patients. In order to perform an assessment of the condition of our patients, routine exams are given. Volunteers learn valuable handling skills that protect the caregiver and the patient from harm. Instructions, safety protocols, and personal protective equipment are provided as needed.

4. Transportation: If you can drive from Oregon to Laytonville and sometimes beyond, then you can help us with transportation for patients. The region we serve is huge and we have to travel as many 3 hours away to pick up orphaned and injured wild neighbors. Simply driving all day can be a very big help to an animal who desperately needs a second chance.

5. Rescue: Many times people report an animal in trouble, but they are unable to do anything about it. They call us. We go out on missions to rescue wild animals every day. Even as a new volunteer you can still participate simply by driving. Capturing wild animals in need is a skill, but you will be provided with the training and the safety equipment to be a hero!

6. Releases: Returning an animal to their birthright of wild freedom is a joy beyond compare. Transporting animals to their release site and helping to ensure their safe return to the life that they were born to is one of the regular bits of supreme awesome-osity that can be yours simply by being here helping!

7. Answering the phone: Helping people resolve conflicts with wild animals is an important part of our daily work. Keeping wild families together – in other words preventing wild babies from becoming orphans is a serious task, can be difficult, and largely happens on the phone in conversation with someone who may be at their wit’s end. Learn to advocate for wild animals in an effective manner by answering the phone in our clinic. It can be challenging, but that just makes our successes sweeter!

8. Humane Solutions! Sometimes keeping wild families together requires an intervention. In order to stop a trapper or some other cruel plan to get rid of an unwated wild animal, we go to the scene and work with the people to keep the wild family safe while conving them that it would be ebst if they moved on. This is delicate work that can also take us on an adventure through people’s crawlspaces and attics. Not for everyone, but if it’s for you, you’ll learn valuable skills in humanely solving people’s conflicts with a wild animal.

9. Ambassador: You can be a voice for the rights of Mother Earth and the Wild. Education and outreach are very important parts of our mission. Do you enjoy speaking in public? Do you have a passion for environmental education? Do you want to make people act right toward wildlife? We may be the droids you’re looking for!

Releasing an animal who was going to die without our care is one the greatest joys known to humanity.

These are some of the most common and important ways that we rely on volunteers to meet the challenges of our mission. Just about every wildlife rehabilitator working today began as a volunteer, and many still are volunteers. Many wildlife rehabilitators with their own facilities at their own houses are still volunteers! This is not a well-paid field, unless you factor in the job satisfaction, and in that sense, it’s unparalleled.

But satisfaction isn’t all that you’ll get out of helping us help our wild neighbors. You will get critical training that can be used here or in a larger context. As a member of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network HWCC/bax is your local path toward being qualified to help care for impacted wildlife if there is ever a catastrophic oil spill locally or across the state. Believe me, the only way to make these kinds of disasters less painful is being able to help repair and restore what was broken. Your desire to help begins here!

So if you want to help us help wildlife in a direct hands-on manner, let us know! CLICK HERE TO APPLY

And if your dance card or your plate is already full, you can always help us meet our mission with your generous support. Donations make our world go ’round. Without your financial help, our doors would close forever. PLEASE DONATE HERE

Thank you for your love of the Wild. Love is the most important ingredient in the conservation and protection of our natural home and our wild kin!

Recovery and Freeedom! The Pandemic Year: part three

Posted on September 10, 2020September 12, 2020 by Monte Merrick

We’ve fallen behind in reporting on our hectic Summer season, due in part to the global coronavirus pandemic, and also to our sudden huge increase in patients over previous Summers. So let us take a breath, slip away from the clinic and our never-ending tasks and catch you up with some of our cases and releases from over the hectic baby season. Here’s a little tune to accompany you.

Three of the six young Gray Foxes (*Urocyon cinereoargenteus*) we provided care for at Humboldt Wildlfie Care Center, Summer 2020.

A young fox surveys their freedom after release.

Orphaned Gray Fox at release performs the title song from the smash hit Broadway musical, Into the Woods. No Zoom app required.

Two nestling Great Blue Herons (*Ardea herodias*), blown from their tree during a late Spring wind storm, get the hang of eating human caregiver delivered fish.

In the early days of the Herons’ care we offered their fish on long hemostats. Quickly they began picking up their fish all by themselves. Soon after that they were hunting live fish in a pool.

Launching into flight at the release site, just south of the Hoopa Reservation, where the two Herons came from. Covid 19 restrictions kept us from taking them all the way home, so a few miles from home would have to suffice.

Great Blue Heron puts a lot of distance between themself and the humans who tried their best to provide good care. We did our jobs. But the stench of humanity still lingers…

Caspian Tern (*Hydroprogne caspia*) in care: This Tern was found struggling in the surf. Without any injuries and in good body condition, we presumed the problem was an accidental dunking. After a few days of fish and rest, this bird who barks like a cat was raring to go!

Released back to Humboldt Bay, where a large colony of Caspian Terns raise their young every year, this beautiful bird was one good tern…

As the saying goes, one good Tern photo deserves another.

Each year mother Mallards (*Anas platyrhynchos*) make their nests near Humboldt Bay and other bodies of water and every year when they lead their precocial babies to that water they have to cross roads. Mayhem ensues. Of the 24 orphaned Mallards we treated this year, 16 of them were found on the highway with their dead mother. Caring for Mallard babies until they can be released is a privilege, but returning them to the wild that is a lustrous green carpet of duckeed is one of life’s marvels.

The Arcata Marsh, home to many ducks and aquatic birds, is rich with nutritious and natural duck food.

A juvenile Brown Pelican (*Pelecanus occidentalis*), very thin and full of lice was admitted this Summer after she turned up on a farm in Arcata (very out of place). Here she is being checked out after 27 days in care. A release exam is given to all our patients before we return them to their wild freedom. Dylan says that ‘to live outside the law you must be honest’ – well, maybe so, but you also must be as fit as a fiddle.

In our Pelican Aviary, this 3 months old female is flying well again!

After being found in a field with dairy cows in the Arcata Bottoms, our former patient is ready for a world of flight, salt water, diving and the company of her kind.

There is no getting around that 2020 has been a very difficult year, for our clinic, for our staff, for our community, for our nation, for the world. Yet, in these really difficult days, we’ve treated, as of this writing, September 10, 1,227 patients. Right now we’ve treated 300 more patients, year to date, in our small hospital on Humboldt Bay than any year in our 41 year history.

In March, as the pandemic was first hitting, it seemed entirely possible that our mission would be crushed under the weight of so much turmoil and uncertainty. It seemed possible that we wouldn’t make it through the Summer. But in fact, we’ve not only kept our doors open, we’ve managed to handle thousands of phone calls that often are better than the hands-on care we provide since these consultations and house calls prevent injuries and keep wild families together. We’ve learned as we went along how to do our work with a skeleton crew and with a shoestring budget. We’ve learned how to communicate effectively, how to keep our cool, how to appreciate the beauty and humor of life without seeing each other’s smiles or laughter. And none of this would have been possible without your support.

By the end of this month we will have treated more patients at HWCC than any previous year and we’ll still have three months to go. We have no idea how disastrous the rest of the year might be, or if we’ll ever return to what used to be normal. But as we’ve all been learning, we’ll keep on keeping on. Our wild neighbors will continue to have a place where they can be treated, cared for, and when possible, released back to their wild freedom. This is our commitment and promise and with your continued support we’ll keep it.

Thank you for making our work possible.

DONATE HERE

photos: Laura Corsiglia/bird ally x

A young Green Heron fights city hall and wins!

Posted on September 3, 2019September 3, 2019 by Monte Merrick

Birds gotta fly and fish gotta swim! No one knows this more than birds and fish. And when a young Green Heron (Butorides virescens) has to fly, fly they must! If it’s the first flight ever, mistakes might be made….

Our Green Heron patient flying in the aviary.

When we got the call that a heron was running around the intersection of 7th and F in Arcata, we quickly drove over to investigate, finding nobody. As it turns out a citizen had already captured and delivered the bird to the Arcata City Hall.

One of the hallmarks of being wild is that no permits are required to live your life. You are free to do as you wish. So there’s no real reason for a heron to visit government offices. If a wild bird does visit, chances are good that something has gone awry.

An employee of the city called to say they’d bring us the bird. While we waited, we speculated that the bird may have been hit by a car, – an obvious guess since found in traffic and not flying away. But when the heron was brought to our clinic a couple of miles away in Bayside, we saw that this bird was a young fledgling, possibly on their first sortie from the nest.

A release evaluation is exactly like an admission exam, but instead of looking for problems, we’re looking for resolution.

Green Herons aren’t endangered, but still they are very uncommon patient at HWCC/bax. We’ve treated 6 individuals over the last 8 years.

Unlike Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons and Black-crowned Night Herons, Green Herons are, in ornithological jargon, “secretive”. You could spend days at the marsh and never see the family of Green Herons who are just beyond your grasp.

Wetlands such as marshes and estuaries are prime habitat for these birds. As wetlands are under increasing attack, so are Green Heron populations in steep decline. Preserving their habitat is key to preserving their lives and existence.

In the case of this young bird, our first concern was getting the youngster back to their family. Less than a quarter mile from Arcata City Hall is a small wetland that seemed the likely location of the Green Heron family nest. In fact, we were informed by a reliable observer that a Green Heron nest had been active in a conifer very close to the nearby Arcata Community Center.

Within a day we had a team out looking for the family. We found the nest, but no birds were spotted. We knew that it was still likely that they were near, but without a confirmed sighting the risk was too great to simply leave the young Heron at the wetland and hope for the best. At this age, the bird would still be relying on food given by their parents.

With no family found, it would be up to us to provide the fledgling with opportunities to learn to forage as well as strengthen flight skills.

A simple kiddie pool can quickly be converted into a fish catching training ground. By mixing live and dead fish in this small pool, our young patient was soon catching and eating live fish like a champ!

Fledgling birds are typically as big if not bigger in weight than adults, so our patient no longer needed to grow, only learn. We provided a pool with live fish fso the Heron could learn to hunt, an aviary big enough for improving flight, and perches and grasses so that the heron’s inherited desire to hide could be satisfied.

After three weeks, the young bird was eating all the fish we offered and had lost the last of the downy nestling feathers. All that was left was release.

We released the Green Heron into excellent habitat not far from the original nest site. It’s quite possible that the bird’s parents and siblings had moved here too. In either case we were certain this bird was ready to be on their own.

In case the reason for their name was a mystery: Green Heron!

Deep inside this thicket, lurks a strange and mysterious force, the Green Heron case #781.

Cropping the image reveals the birds “secret” location.

The Green Heron is somewhere in there, maybe never to be seen by human eyes again.

This young Heron was one of over 900 animals we’ve admitted for care, year to date. Your support paid for the fish the heron ate, the warmth the heron needed on the first night of care, the phone that received the call, the gasoline used to search for their family, and to transport to the release location, and our Bayside facility itself. Without any of these things, this bird wouldn’t be out there right now, wild, free, and able to survive.

2019 is a challenging year. Our caseload is up nearly 5% over last year. We’ve already admitted as many patients this year as we admitted in all of 2013. We need your help! We had a 2019 fundraising goal of $100,000 by August 31. We’re $40,000 short of that goal. We don’t expect to make up the difference, but with your help we can pay our bills from the crazy summer and prepare for the remaining months and the 300-400 more patients we are likely to admit before the year is over. Please help. Thank you!

Donate here to help injured and orphaned wild animals.

photos: Laura Corsiglia/BAX

2018, Challenging, Unpredictable, Heartbreaking, Rewarding…

Posted on December 30, 2018December 31, 2018 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

DONATE TO HELP US HELP OUR WILD NEIGHBORS

Five Orphaned Raccoons Return to the Wild (photos!)

Posted on September 18, 2018 by Monte Merrick

Even in a world in turmoil, some things remain constant. One of those things is the time needed for baby raccoons to reach an age where we feel their ready for independence. Our most typical orphaned raccoon patient is admitted at the time when they’ve started to become vocal (which is how they’re found) which is right before their eyes open, somewhere around 200 to 250 grams. By the time they’ve grown to 350-400 grams their eyes open. After 6 more weeks of milk and slowly introduced natural food items, as they are weaned from milk-replacer, the babies are fierce, active, alert, and extremely curious – like any bright toddler.

(check out other raccoon stories on our website! http://birdallyx.net/tag/northern-raccoon/ )

In order to reduce the potentially fatal stress of captivity (no one likes their freedom taken!) as well as ensure that each youngster maintains her wild spirit, at this point, we handle them very infrequently. This also ensures that all keep a healthy fear of humans, who, let’s face it, have a poor track record with all things wild and free.

Raccoon orphans typically start coming in to Humboldt Wildlife Care Center/bax in early May… and 16 weeks later, in early September, those who were first admitted are ready for release.

Weight checks on raccoons who are nearing release can be challenging! Here HWCC rehabilitator Lucinda Adamson holds a young raccoon gently but firmly while intern Tabytha Sheeley (facing away) assists with identification.

Once weaned, all of our orphaned raccoons are moved to a 14 day weight check. The reduction in handling does them a world of good!

Raccoons who are ready to go wait for their ride to the release site.

At the release site: tentative faces peer out. Caution in the face of novelty is the hallmark of being wild!

And curiosity eventually overpowers! There’s a whole wide world to explore and raccoons, intelligent, investigative and irrepressible, soon leave the familiar crates for the limitless cosmos.

One by one, the five raccoons emerge from their transport carriers, the last box that will ever contain them!

Some elements of the natural world – rock, river, insect, leaf – are familiar to the youngsters. Our raccoon housing is built to introduce wild orphans to many of the the resources they’ll use once they’re independent and free.

In this group of raccoons, two are siblings, but all five have been housed together since they were first weaned. Raccoons form bonds – bonds of family, bonds of friendship – just like many of us.

Soon, they all start to look across the river to the ever widening world.

They cross the river together.

HWCC/bax volunteer Skylr Lopez (right) and intern Tabytha Sheeley watch the young raccoons move farther and farther away. Like sending our kids off to college, releasing our patients after four months of providing their care is a joy that is tinged with sadness.

Five raccoons facing their future, not looking back.

We often say that we raise wild orphans – but we don’t really. We provide milk-replacer at the appointed hour for those who would still be nursing – we feed insects on a tight schedule to baby birds who cannot feed themselves. We keep their housing clean. We keep them physically healthy. But teaching them to be adults of their kind is something each orphan patient must do for herself. Each baby is given housing in which he can learn safely. We don’t teach them anything. We provide the setting for them to make discoveries. In fact it is the orphan wild animals in our care who do the teaching. Everything that we know about their needs, we learned from them.

Their teaching and your support are what make successful raccoons like these five possible. So far in 2018 we’ve treated over 900 wild animals – our busiest year in HWCC history! Your support is needed now more than ever! Thank you!

all photos (Laura Corsiglia/Bird Ally X)

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, Baby Skunks!

Posted on June 4, 2017July 20, 2017 by Monte Merrick

This story comes with recommended listening, Cornell Dupree playing Joe Zawinul’s Mercy, Mercy, Mercy:

It happens and you don’t even know why. Suddenly – you’ve just learned to walk, just learning to find bugs, just seeing the night sky – you’re alone. Your siblings too. Maybe your mother was hit by a car. Maybe she was trapped and killed or taken far away. But no matter what happened, she didn’t come back ever again. A day goes by, then two, then three. Before you know it you don’t want to run anymore and then, if you’re lucky, one of those people finds you, picks you up, puts you in a box. If you make it to a wildlife rehabilitator, you’re going to be in boxes of one kind or another for a little while. But if all goes well, you’ll be free again.

***

Last week at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, we admitted our first baby Striped Skunks (Mephitis mephitis) of the season. 3 youngsters were found in a backyard in Eureka. They’d been seen for a couple of days, but no mother was observed at any time. When one of them was found not moving, all 3 were captured and brought to our clinic.

Right on the edge of weaning, they are old enough to eat solid food and can be housed in our outdoor small mammal housing. But they are far too young to be on their own with no protection and no one to teach them how to find food, how to hunt.

For the next 8 weeks, these distant cousins to the otters (and even more distant to ourselves) will learn to forage for insects, find prey, and recognize the foods that will sustain them in adulthood. We’ll measure their progress and keep a distance between to protect their wildness and preserve their healthy fear of human beings.

We’ll need your help.

What follows are photographs from their first day in care. Now they are housed outdoors, in privacy. We’ll post more photographs as we can get opportunity during health checks over the coming weeks. Right now, they are gaining weight and using their new little teeth very well.

An exam of each skunk was made. One of them, the male of the three, was cold, lethargic and dehydrated, the two sisters were in much better shape. Each was given warmed subcutaneaous fluids. The male, initially found immobile in the grass, had to be kept in an incubator for some time, but soon recovered and rejoined his siblings.
Tail up, the weaker of the three begins to signal his recovery as he signals his alarm at waking up in an incubator.
Oh yes, these teeth are ready from something to chew on!

The two healthier sisters inside their initial housing to observe their stability, learn more about their state of health and make sure that they are eating. The brother soon joined them.

At this age, skunks don’t have much ability to spray. Still the siblings stamp out warnings and lift their tails in mock battle. Play leads to adulthood!

It can be a hard sell – that these skunks matter. That any skunks matter. In a world such as ours, with demons at the helm, who put every thing that matters up on blocks in the front yard – the chopping block or the auction block – it can seem like we’ve got more pressing matters. But we don’t. So much of what we suffer in this world is the result of a human arrogance that values its own engorgement over the very mystery that produces appetites at all. In this world, pleading the case of the wounded Robin, the orphaned skunk, the broken-winged gull can seem like too little too late. But if we’re going to have a big world worth protecting, we’ll find it the small miracles that surround us, the dense feathers of the seabird’s belly, the strong musk of an evening’s encounter.

Please help us care for these beings whose lives are their own, who determine their own value, victims of our thoughtless creations. Donate (here) if you can. Thank you.

photos: Bird Ally X/ Laura Corsiglia

Wild fostering…

Posted on June 3, 2017June 3, 2017 by Monte Merrick

Admitting a wild baby for care immediately poses questions that must be solved. First! Is this baby an orphan? Wild babies are better off with their families. If the family is intact, our first task is to reunite the baby with parent or parents. For some species this is easy, for others less so … Finding a mother Mallard(Anas platyrhynchos) who’s lost one or more of her chicks is nearly impossible, while getting a mistakenly grabbed Raven(Corvus corax) chick back to her parents is one of the easiest things you can do.

But often the family is gone, a parent killed, or their whereabouts unknowable (a dog drags a fawn up to the front porch, uninjured, but who knows from where…). However hope for a real wild upbringing isn’t completely lost. In some cases we can “wild foster”, a technique in which orphans are placed in a wild family of their own species although not related. For some species, including most raptors, this can be easily done. (check out the work of The Hungry Owl Project, one of the organizations that helped spread the use of this technique for raptors in California.) We attempt to wild foster our young orphans whenever we can, or is necessary.

If re-uniting and fostering are not an option, we still have our faithful standby: we raise the orphans ourselves. While not ideal, successfully raising orphaned wild animals is done every day across the world by compassionate people, mostly volunteers, who take the business of being wild very seriously. We protect the wild nature of our patients fiercely, as well as their absolute right to freedom. To successfully prepare our patients for their adulthood means to provide them an upbringing that will give them the opportunity to develop the necessary tools for surviving and thriving – meeting their rightful destiny.

It may same a strange activity, but taking care of babies not even of your own species isn’t just humane, it’s natural.

Consider how tenderly this Bald Eagle(Haliaeetus leucocephalus) feeds this Red-tailed Hawk(Buteo jamaicensis) chick at this eagle nest. How this hawk found his way into this nest we may never know, but we do know this: This eagle is giving this hawk a second chance! Just like we do. One feeding at a time.

In this remarkable video, Bald Eagles in their nest at Roberts Bay, near Victoria, British Columbia are seen feeding a Red-tailed Hawk nestling. Apparently raising orphans of a species not your own is a perfectly natural endeavor! [EDIT: more information on this nest here.]

As with all aspects of our work, raising wild orphans requires specialized skills and a facility that is flexible enough to meet the shifting demands of our caseload and the diversity of our wild neighbors – raising Common Murre(Uria aalge) chicks and Raccoons(Procyon lotor) do have some similarities, but mostly they have a multitude of differences!

Whether we raise these babies ourselves, wild foster them, or return them to their families, our ability to act, to weigh the considerations and have resources available so that the our best course of action can be followed. All of our work stems from your support. Without your support, none of this ever happens. Please help us now in the midst of our busiest time of the year. We have a lot of mouths to feed. Donate Now.

Big Release Day!

Posted on September 3, 2016September 3, 2016 by Monte Merrick

This holiday weekend got off to a great start; filled with the best outcome for our work- multiple releases!

Friday we released 11 of our patients back to their free and wild lives after recovering from being orphaned or injured.

Four Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) juveniles were released. These birds were siblings whose nest was illegally removed by a maintenance person at the request of the homeowner. It’s a crime to remove a migratory songbird’s nest. Most migratory birds are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Sadly, this nest was the second one for this Barn Swallow pair to be destroyed this summer by the same person! Both sets of babies were brought to us to be raised. Of course we explained the law, so hopefully next summer, if the parent birds return to the same location, they might have a chance to raise their own babies!

Also released was a Great Egret (Ardea alba) who’d been found in a ditch, covered in mud and very thin. After a two weeks of care, this bird was doing very well, using our aviary for built specifically for herons and egrets, as well as dabbling ducks. Check out the video of the heron’s release:

A few days ago we admitted for care both a Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) and a Virginia Rail (Rallus limicola) who’d collided with windows.

Window strikes can be deadly, especially for a larger bird like a woodpecker, who’s mass increases the force of the impact. There are several things you can do to minimize the risk of a bird colliding with your windows, including stickers, sprays, objects or anything that can make the window either visible or inaccessible. You can go to Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website for more ideas on making your windows less dangerous.

Fortunately, both the Woodpecker and the Rail were only disoriented and stunned by their collisions. Only a few days in care were required before they were released. Here’s a video of the Woodpecker:

We also released two Western Gulls (Larus occidentalis) One, an adult, was found unable to fly in a backyard in the community of King Salmon on the edge of Humboldt Bay. She’d been there for a few days, eating chicken scratch. Weak and very thin, the bird was enthusiastic about the fish diet we served. After several days in care she was flying in our gull aviary. After 3 weeks she was ready for freedom!

We met our August goal of $7000! Thank you!! Our goal for September is to build on that, pay summer bills and prepare for winter. You can help! Please click here to DONATE NOW! Thank you!

Released with the adult was a juvenile gull who we admitted several weeks ago. His parents had the misfortune of nesting on the deck of a sail boat in the San Francisco Bay area. When the boat sailed for Humboldt midsummer, they brought this baby with them. Since therew as obviously no way to get himback to his parents, we provided fish and safe housing. Once he was ready to fly we moved him into the aviary with the adult. Both were released on the same day, together.

Here’s a fuzzy video that does at least show their excitement upon release from captivity.

And that’s not all! We also released a California King Snake (Lampropeltis getula californiae) and the last Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) in care from our summer ducklings.

The King Snake had been wrongfully held captive. He only needed time to prove that he knew what his natural food should be and that he was acclimated to life outdoors.

As a late season baby, the Mallard duckling had been alone for a few weeks in care. But released, she was soon in the comapny of her kind at the Arcata marsh, where food is plentiful and the chance to socialize and prepare for winter as a proper Mallard will finish her education.

Each of these wild neighbors would have died without your support. Each of them received the best care we could provide at the only available wildlife clinic on the North coast. Thanks to your generosity and your love for the wild, we are here every single day of the year. If you’d like to help us meet the challenge of our mission, donate today! Thank you!!

Letting Nature Take ‘Its’ Course.

Posted on August 29, 2016September 20, 2016 by Monte Merrick

It’s a common expression: let nature takes its course – and we learn it while we ‘re young. It can be used in many ways, but in the end, what it always means is that the best outcome can be achieved by doing nothing – that left alone, the inevitable outcome is the preferred outcome.

As wildlife rehabilitators, we hear this expression every day.

Two months ago, a man called from somewhere out Highway 36 – he’d found a fawn by the side of the road with a dead doe, presumably the fawn’s mother, most likely hit by a vehicle. The caller had already talked to a local government agent to find help. “The ranger said it would be better to let nature take it’s course,” he said, “but I couldn’t just leave the little guy there. Will you take him?”

Of course we would. And we did.

The fawn is doing well, is now being weaned from a bottle to foraging for greens, in the company of other fawns, untamed. If all continues to go well, he will soon be released back into a wild herd.

Two weeks ago we released an Osprey who’d been hit by a vehicle and picked up from the shoulder of a two-lane blacktop that skirts the western edge of Lassen National Park. The woman who found the bird talked to an employee at a park information booth who told her the best thing she could do was put the grounded bird back and, yes, let nature take its course. She said she couldn’t do that, so the employee found her a box and gave her a phone number for a veterinarian in Redding. When she got to Redding, the veterinary clinic wasn’t open (nor were they permitted to treat wildlife).

So she found us on the internet. Since she was already headed to the coast she was able to bring the Osprey to our clinic. It took all day, but eventually we had the bird in care. While in relatively good shape with no external injuries, the Osprey was slow to respond, seeming dazed. Within a couple days, however, in the safety of our clinic, the plunge-diving raptor regained his wits and was flying well and in a very dissatisfied mood.

As soon as he was ready, our staff took him on the 5 hour drive back to Lassen, back to his lake next to the volcano. He needed nothing more than some time in care – a safe haven where food and safety are provided.

If you put the Osprey back on the side of the road and “let nature take its course” – disoriented and grounded by his collision with a vehicle – it’s predictable that the Osprey will die. With no treatment, who knows how long it will take for him to recover his wits, if ever – and with no food or water, his slow decline gathers momentum until he’s too weak to seek shelter, let alone regain his ability to meet his own needs. Another car, another predator, or a slow death by dehydration is as certain as night follows day.

If you provide care – hydration, food, anti-inflammatory medicine, a safe aviary, reduced stress – and let Nature take her course – the bird stands a very good chance of healing and getting a second chance.

Do all of the animals who we treat recover? Of course not. Many animals do not respond to treatment – the antibiotics are too late to prevent the death of a Barn Swallow bitten by a house cat, the neurological trauma that leaves the Raven with paralyzed legs doesn’t resolve. More often, the patient’s injuries are simply too severe. The only course we can take is to humanely end the suffering. Any hunter can tell you that you don’t let an animal wander off to a slow death from the wounds that you’ve caused. You don’t gut-shoot a deer and then “let nature take its course.” Wild animals who’ve been injured by the human-built world at least have the right to a humane death.

The person in uniform, or the biologist, or the front desk clerk, who recommends letting nature take its course may not be able to diagnose the injury, may not be aware that treatment is available, may not be informed at all on this topic. Often the person functioning as the authority is merely parroting a worn phrase we all know so well.

‘Let nature take its course’ is not a fact-based recommendation, it is not science based. Now of course there are many ways to use this phrase in many situations, but to be clear, when we’re talking about injured and orphaned wild animals, letting nature take its course means not taking responsibility for the injury and suffering our society has caused. It is irresponsible even though it parades as the dispassionate, wider-scoped perspective, not the uneducated sentimental feelings of compassion. And in this way, Nature is made out to be the culprit – Nature is cruel, and the compassionate person is a fool. A logging truck full of trees hits a deer and kills her, leaving her young stranded – too small to survive. The local ranger says the fawn should be left alone, that we should let nature take its course, and it is Nature who is cruel.

Meanwhile, who destroys Nature foolishly? Is it the person who blunders in picking up a fledgling sparrow thinking that the bird was in trouble and not simply in an awkward phase of learning to fly? Or a bison calf? Or, is it the builders of pipelines, the levelers of forests, the polluters of the sea? Why is it only fitting for nature to take its course when an individual is suffering an injury caused by industrial society?

And there is this: the heavy line drawn between the human and the natural, between society and the wild is religious, not scientific. It is a belief, not a finding. Who among us has the hubris to say where that line runs, or if it exists at all.

In the end, ‘letting nature take its course’ is a fallacy, an error, a hypocrisy, a lie.

Right now, in Washington state, wolves are slated to be slaughtered for having killed cattle that were put out to graze at the wolves’ den site on public lands. No cries from the biologists, the wardens, or the clerks now to let nature take its course – no cries at all.

We are in the last days of our August fundraiser and we have not yet reached our necessary goal of $7000. We have nearly $2000 to go!! Click here to help us pay our bills and continue to provide our region with its only native wildlife hospital. Without your help, we wouldn’t be here! Thank you!

A Hawk Discovers You Can Go Home Again

Posted on July 31, 2016August 1, 2016 by Monte Merrick

In mid-June, a very ordinary thing happened. Someone called our clinic to ask for help with a bird who’d fallen from a high nest. Typically, we’d like to get birds who fall from their nest back to their families right away. But this case had some complications. First, the bird was in Petrolia, which is part of the area we serve, but is a couple of hours away and second, the nest location wasn’t known.

[Thank YOU!! – We made it to $5000 by the end of July! And a few hundred dollars more!! your support makes our work possible! Our August goal of $7000 will allow us to buy fish to feed our growing seabird caseload, as well as continue providing care for all of this season’s orphaned wild babies – raccoons! swallows! hawks! jays! and more! Please contribute what you can! Every donation helps! Click here to donate now!]

The bird happened to be a Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), an easily recognized member of our community. These magnificent small hawks can be seen along almost any rural road, working over almost any open field, perched in nearby trees, hunting for primarily rodents along the edges of almost everything. Each year we typically raise at least one of these hawks, and sometimes more. This hawk was on the larger side so we imagined that she was female.

Without knowing the location of the nest, there was little chance for us to return this wayward nestling to her family. Even raising her until fledging wasn’t going to be enough, because these birds depend on their parents after they’ve left the nest for food until they are able to hunt. So we’d have to keep this bird in care until she was able to recognize and eat real prey. Fortunately, our patient was an older nestling, close to being ready for flight.

Immediately, the hawklet began to devour all the food we offered, thawed mice, thawed rats, basically any small animal we fed. And we watched as real world feathers grew in and the bird changed into a sleek, beautiful juvenile.

In the aviary with another young raptor, the Red-shouldered hawk (on the left) is alert and wary.

After 6 weeks, and after she demonstrated her ability to hunt, we returned the hawk to Petrolia and released her. Of course we hoped that she would find family members and remember enough of the area that she’d learned from the view from the nest, but in any case we were confident that this young raptor would be able to fend for herself.
Capturing the hawk from the aviary for her release exam. Every examination puts a great deal of stress on a patient. We reduce this handling as much as possible.
Keeping raptor feet healthy in an environment where they spend more than an ordinary amount of time perched in one location is important. After 6 weeks in captivity this hawk’s feet are in perfect condition.

Her eyes, mouth, hearing – every aspect of this hawk screamed “Release me!” So we did.

It’s a long and stunningly beautiful drive to Petrolia, the human capital of the Lost Coast.

Without knowledge of the nest location, a release site was chosen based on proximity to Petrolia and suitability of habitat – the presence of trees, open land, and the Mattole River made this a good site.

Release!

Our patient in flight, over the home she was meant to have.

Here is a very short video that really shows the explosive speed of this young hawk…

The story doesn’t stop here. Within a few minutes from release, the young former patient postioned herself on the highest tree in the area and began calling. Within a few more minutes, an adult Red-shouldered Hawk arrived on the scene.
Perched and calling, soon two other Red-shouldered Hawks, at least one of them an adult, arrived. Was the adult a parent to this youngster? Well, we can’t say for sure. We believe so. One thing we know with certainty: they left the area together. A re-united family is the likely explanation.

The last shot gotten as the young bird followed the adults into the trees beyond view.

This hawk’s return to freedom is one of the important outcomes of your support for our work. More than rehabilitation is needed, of course. These hawks still must live in a world where casual violence, habitat destruction, rodenticides, lead and myriad other non-natural challenges make life in the wild more precarious than it should be. Your love for the wild and respect for Mother Earth also goes a long way toward preserving the world and celebrating life.

Want to be part of our life-saving work? Please donate today. Your contribution goes directly to the care of injured and orphaned wild animals on the North Coast and beyond. Thank you!!!

all photos: Laura Corsiglia/ Bird Ally X