A Young Bald Eagle, A Difficult Case, A Slim Chance.

Posted on March 14, 2017 by Monte Merrick

Usually we share our successes. Now and again we might share stories of patients whose injuries were so severe that the only care we could provide was to end their suffering, but we don’t often take our supporters and community members through that process. It’s our task and we perform it as we need to, without regret, because it is a simple fact of wildlife rehabilitation that most of our work consists of ending the suffering of animals still alive but battered, sometimes beyond recognition, let alone repair.

Also, we don’t often share the stories of animals who are still in care. The primary reason is that for wild animals, captivity itself is life threatening. The stress of being in a caregiver’s hand can be too much for a songbird – sudden misfortune, or setbacks in care, can derail a patient’s recovery. Building expectations of happy resolution that doesn’t come seems unnecessary. Also, it’s simply a cultural standard that we don’t count our proverbial chickens before they’ve hatched.

So, with all that in mind, here is the story so far of this Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) who we admitted for care a few days ago.

Last Friday evening, BAX co-founder Laura Corsiglia and one of our long time volunteers met a Warden from California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) in Willow Creek to accept a Bald Eagle who’d been in care in Weaverville since June of 2016.

Our first glimpse of young Bald Eagle, after meeting CDFW staff in Willow Creek. Although young and disabled, this bird is still formidable!

It is unknown how the young Eagle was injured. According to the Trinity Journal, the fledgling was found at Trinity Lake at the bottom of a tree with an Eagle nest, suffering with multiple fractures of his left wing. (While it isn’t certain, we believe the bird is a male based on his size which is at the smaller end of the spectrum of Eagle sizes.) At the time he was found, a CDFW warden in the area took the fledgling to a veterinarian in Weaverville. Near death due to dehydration and lack of parental care, the Eagle was stabilized by the staff.

For reasons we are not sure of, the Eagle’s treatment continued in Weaverville over the Summer of 2016 into the Winter. In December CDFW staff attempted to transfer him to our facility in Humboldt County (Trinity County is our neighbor to the East) but a rock slide had closed Highway 299 east of Willow Creek, barring passage. Several attempts were made over the next few months to get past the slide during temporary openings without success until last Friday, the 10th of March.

Once in care, immediately BAX staff could see that this Eagle’s left wing was seriously damaged. Multiple fractures to the humerus, radius and ulna have healed with very poor alignment. His wing cannot function at all, nor can he hold it in anything close to a normal position. At this point, only extensive surgery could save this bird’s life let alone help him recover to the point of being releasable.

Our patient after his first day in our care. We immediately contacted the wildlife biologist at USFWS responsible for Migratory Bird permits who grants our permit to rehabilitate birds. We stay in close contact with her any time we treat a specially protected species (most birds are protected under various laws, including the Migratory Bird Treaty Act) such as the Endangered Species Act, or, in this case, the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

However, this Eagle has been in care for nine months, and since we have one avenue that may give him a chance, we’ve decided to try even though it’s an extremely long shot. Bird Ally X co-founder and co-director, Dr. Shannon Riggs, DVM, who is Director of Animal Care at Pacific Wildlife Care near San Luis Obispo, is a highly accomplished avian orthopedic surgeon – her evaluation of his wing and his chances for a successful surgery are worth seeking. With the approval of the USFWS we’re transporting this bird to her care at that facility this week.

He has a difficult road ahead with the odds stacked heavily against him. If he were a patient like any other, we would likely have already made the decision that further treatment would be unlikely to help and would only compound the misery of captive life.

While his prognosis for recovery is very poor, and his current condition is so poor that humanely ending his suffering may be the only possible outcome, we believe it is worth it to exhaust all possibilities. We will be posting updates as his care proceeds.

The damaged wing is presumably painful and drags on the ground causing secondary wounds. Soon, however, this limbo will end – hopefully with good news, but at least his suffering will be over no matter which direction his care goes.

The care for any injured and orphaned wildlife here on the North Coast wouldn’t be possible without your support. For this patient, when we factor the cost of transport to a facility 500 miles away, the cost of surgery, the cost of rehabilitation post-surgery (here’s hoping!) we will need your help more than ever. We already have a goal for March of $7000 that doesn’t include the care of this young Bald Eagle. Want to help? Donate here. Thank you for supporting our work!

photos: Bird Ally X/Laura Corsiglia

One Western Grebe Improves Care For All

Posted on March 12, 2017March 12, 2017 by Monte Merrick

A storm-tossed Western Grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis) was admitted last month at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center.

Western grebes are relatively common birds on the Pacific coast in winter where they can often be seen in the salt chucks, bays, lagoons, and the ocean, often in large groups, just beyond the breaking waves. We treat many each year. Last year we provided care for nearly 30 Western Grebes. 2014 was a bad year for these elegant aquatic birds – we treated 97.

Because Western Grebes are frequent patients, we generally have good results treating their most common ailments, parasites such as tapeworm, emaciation, and loss of waterproofing due to contamination.

In most ways, the Grebe that came in last month was an ordinary patient. Found on the beach in Trinidad, small abrasions under her lower bill had bled and soiled her neck feathers, which caused her feathers to lose their waterproofing. But that wasn’t her primary problem. Her biggest problem was that she is a juvenile who’d been facing her first winter of independence. This year’s exceptionally stormy season got the better of her. Emaciated, dehydrated, and wet, she didn’t stand a chance without rescue.

But in one critical way this Grebe’s treatment was unusual.

Many of the aquatic birds we treat are piscivores, or fish-eaters. Ordinarily, it is the protocol in successful treatment of highly aquatic birds who require pools to offer these patients fish with low fat content. Pool water quality is important to protect and fish with higher fat content has caused problems, the fish oil contaminates the pool water and in turn contaminates the feathers of the patient, which disrupts the carefully maintained waterproofing. In the wild, these contaminants lead to death. Oil isn’t water-soluble. A detergent of some kind is required to remove it. Once oiled, a bird needs to be cleaned.

Caring for aquatic birds is a specialized skill precisely because of their need for water. Pools, water quality, feeding techniques are each crucial elements in providing care, as are the efforts we make to protect our patients from the harm that can be caused by holding aquatic patients out of water. On land and inside our building, birds who typically float on water their entire lives, are highly susceptible to pressure wounds, respiratory infections, and other secondary problems caused by their time in captivity.

An aquatic bird housed in “dry-dock” needs protective wraps to guard against injures from even the softest solid surfaces. Even with these measures, the patient still must get back to water quickly.

Most of the techniques and protocols for rehabilitating injured aquatic birds come from oil spill response. During an oil spill, sometimes thousands of birds might be impacted. The techniques developed to increase success with such large caseloads is the basis for most current aquatic bird care. Generally we follow them with predictable and largely positive results.

However, something very unusual happened in 2016. The low fat fish we feed our patients, Night Smelt were no longer available. Our supplier said there would be nome until April, and that wasn’t even certain.

Fish populations across the oceans are in trouble, of course. Rising sea temperatures, plastic pollution, over-fishing, agricultural waste run-off, acidification are all wreaking havoc on the marine environment and the health of Mother Earth.

So, we got the fish that our suppliers could deliver: River Smelt, known here on the Northwest coast as Eulachons.

Eulachons are a very nutritious fish, with twice as many calories as Night Smelt. They are also bigger. Not so big that they can’t be swallowed whole by a Western Grebe (see video below) but five times larger than night smelt. Mathematically, it’s easy to see how Eulachons are a better fish to feed. Two 50 gram fish hold a total of 150 calories. Night smelt, at 10 grams each and 70 calories per 100 grams, require 20 fish to reach the same energy content!

This Grebe wouldn’t eat for her first week in care. She had no interest in food. She also had an injury just inside her cloaca, or ‘vent’, so it is possible that she was very uncomfortable when eliminating solid waste. In any case, we had to provide her nutrition via a feeding tube, a technique known as ‘gavage’ feeding – basically putting a fish slurry (a blend of smelt, vitamins, and a nutritionally enhanced liquid similar to a protein drink) directly into the patient’s stomach.
Gavage feeding is necessary when a patient isn’t able to self-feed.

Her weight during this period gradually rose. Our schedule for feeding balanced the needs of the patient to not see our scary faces too many times a day against the calories she needed to recover from her near death by starvation.

Typically aquatic birds require about 3 weeks of Night Smelt to recover from clinical emaciation. Of course there is some variance depending on other factors, including the personality of the patient.

[Your support needed! We are several thousand short of our March goal of $7000! Any amount helps! from $5, to $5 a month to $5000 dollars, your generosity goes directly to our mission of direct care and education. Please donate today!]

After the first week in care, going in and out of the pool, the Grebe struggled with her waterproofing. Her feathers around her vent were consistently wet. Besides for the confirmation that she might indeed have a wound healing just inside her digestive tract, her waterproofing issues were keeping her from spending all her time in the pool, which she needed badly. She had begun eating on her own and her weight was climbing steadily. The only thing holding her back was the persistent wetness around her vent. So we applied detergent to that area to give her a boost. Within a day she was waterproof.
After a week in care, she’d started eating on her own, and with our help, she was waterproof.

After 48 hours in the pool, we thought she was going to be released very soon. And then came a major setback. A volunteer went out to check at the end of the day that the birds in the pool had food and our Grebe was completely soaked, sitting on the little net (we call it a ‘haul-out’) we have for birds who need get out of the water. A healthy bird rarely uses it – it’s essentially a lifeboat for a bird who is struggling.

We pulled her from the pool, put her under a pet dryer and kept her indoors overnight. We analyzed the pool for what might have caused her problem. An obvious suspect, of course was the fish, the fatty Eulachons that had been such an effective food for her emaciation.
This is a very soggy bird using her haul-out. 50˚F water isn’t comfortable for warm blooded animals without thir protective shell. Aquatic birds rely on their feathers to satay warm and dry.

How fish are presented in pools is a tricky proposition no matter what the fat content is. Pieces of fish rather than whole fish are an oily mess even with Night Smelt. Our pools all have an overflow system so that any oils from fish or feces on top of the water are constantly being eliminated.

The problem was identified and we took corrective action. The basket we place the fish was not allowing water to freely flow, trapping oils. Every time our patient put her head in that water to grab a fish, she was picking up the oils and then spreading them around body when she preened, the time-consuming work that most birds must do every day to keep their feathers in good, functional shape. It was a simple problem, simply fixed.

We re-washed her. Within 24 hours she was fully waterproof. 48 hours after that, she was released, 300 grams heavier than when she was admitted, her wounds healed, and her life back on track. Her total time in care, with set backs: 15 days. The Eulachons, even with the problem, shaved a week off her recovery time. That’s simply too good to reject. So we amend our ways to accommodate the oil.
Using a very mild detergent and warm water, the Grebe was quickly washed. From here she was palced in a warm water pool where she essentially rinses herself, finishing the job. Another day of preening and she’ll back on top of her game. A hidden camera caught her as she works to reolve her feather issues in private. She also likes fish!

After another 48 hours in our pool, with modifications made to our system, she ate Eulachons and gained even more weight. After 2 weeks in care, she was released back to her wild freedom.

And then she was gone. Our intimacy with her is done. She returns to her rightful place, out of our hands.

Right now we don’t have a choice. Eulachons, or river smelt, are what we can find. But even if we do have a choice, we’ll be sticking with the Eulachons. Our goal is to provide the best care, and good nutrition is cornerstone to that goal.

At our clinic in Bayside, with 1200 animals per year in care, we have the opportunity to elaborate on the gains made in aquatic bird care that emerged from high casualty marine disasters such as oil spills. We have the opportunity to develop strategies using our hard won knowledge to improve the care individual animals receive. Will Eulachons be a good fish choice to feed patients in an oil spill? Maybe, but we’d need to devise methods to improve water quality in ways that aren’t currently available. For individual patients, however, or for the much more common caseloads that coastal wildlife rehabilitators face daily, at our teaching hospital here on Humboldt Bay, we are doing the cutting edge work of improving the results of our care. Just as importantly, our efforts here don’t stop here. Through workshops and conferences we take the results of our work to other rehabilitators, demonstrating techniques and processes that they can use, on limited budgets, with limited resources. This necessary self-reliance seems to be the future of all rehabilitation work.

As we enter this period of dire uncertainty – with the Endangered Species Act under threat, with the Environmental Protection Agency openly attacked – in this terrible anti-bloom of the post-conservation era, our work is critical to the future of wildlife rehabilitation.

No matter how bad things become, no matter what night mare unfolds, wild animals will continue to suffer from human activity, human structures, and human caused problems such as quickly deteriorating ocean health. There will be those among us, today, tomorrow and as long as humans are present, who will be compelled to help. If we meet the challenges of our mission, those rehabilitators to come will have reliable information on how to provide good care.

Your support is the only thing that makes any of our work possible. Thank you!

All photos/videos Bird Ally X.

Storm Battered Screech-Owl Secures Second Chance

Posted on March 2, 2017March 2, 2017 by Monte Merrick

After the storms at the end of February raged across the North Coast, our caseload at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center saw many more battered birds. Collisions with rocks at sea, collisions with buildings – even frantic foraging during lulls in the wind and rain can cause otherwise cautious wild animals to take dangerous risks in order to eat. While we may never know what actually caused an injury, the treatment is often the same. Such was the case with this Western Screech-owl (Megascops kennicottii) who was brought in to our wildlife hospital the last week of February after being found in the middle of Murray Road, east of McKinleyville.

The small owl, presumed male, was in excellent body condition, had no broken bones, but his left eye was swollen closed. Fortunately his eye was in good shape, with just swollen tissue surrounding. So after only a few days of anti-inflammatory medicine, he was flying very well, and very stressed by captivity. While it doesn’t tell the whole story, a healthy wild animal is less tolerant of human caregivers than one who is weak, in shock, or otherwise debilitated.

[We need to raise $7000 in the month of March to stay on track for meeting the challenges of 2017! Please Help! You can donate here! Thanks!]

Soon, we were able to return this Owl to the neighborhood where he lives. There is no question that his chances for survival without someone who cared enough to get him help finding him was seriously jeopardized. Even an hour on the ground can be fatal for a bird, especially if the ground in question s a well used rural highway. Enjoy the photographs that tell the story of his release! Thanks for your support!

He flies very well!

Our aviary isn’t big enough for this Owl.

If he passes his release evaluation, this is the last time he’ll have to encounter the dreaded net.

Checking the progress of his wounded eye.

On the way to the release site…

Patient flying away – the best sight…

Thanks to you and your generous support, the folks who found this owl were able to find us. And thanks to the care that your support allows us to provide, there will be another Screech-owl in the Redwoods this Spring, preparing to raise another clutch of owlets with his mate. With our help, they’ll make sure there’ll always be Screech-owls in our forests.

All photos: Bird Ally X/Laura Corsiglia

Raccoon (and Owl!) Under the Trees for Christmas

Posted on December 30, 2016 by Monte Merrick

Our wildlife clinic in Bayside, Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, is open every day of the year, including each holiday. There has never been a day when it wasn’t good that we were here. This year on Christmas we admitted a very badly injured Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) who’s suffering we were able to end, and we returned to their free and wild lives a Western Screech-owl (Megascops kennicottii), who’d been hit by a car a week before the holiday but luckily had no traumatic injuries and recovered quickly, and a Raccoon (Procyon lotor) who’d been admitted as a young orphan months ago.

In 2016, at our wildlife clinic in Bayside, we raised nearly 30 orphaned Raccoons (Procyon lotor), from tiny neonatal babies who were still a week or more from opening their eyes, to juveniles orphaned or lost after leaving the den. Now, at the beginning of winter, most of these orphans have been released. We have two late season babies – much later than usual – who will be in care for another few weeks before they’re ready.

This Raccoon was admitted in early summer, a young female, just a few weeks old. Right at the time when her similarly aged cohorts in care were being released, she was discovered to have an active infection that was causing her feet to become raw and swollen. She was not going to like treatment at all. We isolated her from the others and put her on a course of antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medicine. Soon she was looking much better, and each day she snarled and struggled (thanks welder’s gloves!) against the indignities of wound treatment, medicine, and loathsome human hands! After 10 days, her symptoms were healed, her appetite returned and her determination undiminished. We took her off meds and held her for a week to be certain that she was recovered. That week ended on Christmas Day.

Into the wild, a place she had never really left…

Apparently other raccoons like this river too… a few footprints of her colleagues were seen at the scene.

The Western Screech-owl is returned to a site very close to where he was found.

A last fleeting glimpse before he’s gone back into the wild night.

Your support makes this work possible. Your support gave the Western Screech-owl and Released on Christmas a second chance. Your support gave that Northern Flicker a painless end to a horrible accident caused by our built world. We chase these successes around a world that often seems to care not even the tiniest amount about the suffering it causes. Your support proves that appearance false. Thank you for your love for the Wild. Thank you for being a part of this life-saving work.

all photos: Laura Corsiglia/Bird Ally X

Two Area Sea Geese are Home Again.

Posted on December 15, 2016 by Monte Merrick

So far this year, among the returning birds to Humboldt Bay, we’ve admitted several Brant (Branta bernicla) for care. In fact, we’ve treated more Brant this year, twelve, than we’d treated in 2012 (5), -13 (3), -14 (0), and -15 (1) combined. Brant are beautiful and strong sea geese, thriving on our winter coast. Even in illness they aren’t likely to be easily found. Most commonly, we find them on the beach, exhausted often so severely injured that the only care we can provide is a humane exit from suffering, a wing shattered and hanging, a leg bone fractured at multiple locations and useless now forever. Of the 21 Brant we’ve treated in the last five years, over 70% of them had injuries that were likely gunshot wounds.

Brant, like all ducks and geese, are legally hunted in season. While regulations vary by location, in most of California, two Brant can be killed legally each day for approximately five weeks each year, spread across November and December. Today, 15 December, is the last day of Brant season in Humboldt County in 2016. From now until Spring, when Brant depart for the high Arctic tundra where they’ll raise next year’s young, the hunting pressure is off. Now they only must rest, eat, loaf and become ready for the demands of migration and the workload of parenting.

These two geese were fortunate. Each was found on an ocean beach, one in Trinidad, the other near the Eel River’s mouth. Neither had been seriously injured. Both geese were exhausted and thin. A dietary staple of Brant is eelgrass (Zostera marina), especially after Pacific Herring (Clupea pallasii) have spawned, laying their eggs in the dense underwater plants from November through March along the California coast from Half Moon Bay to Crescent City’s harbor.

For the last two years, the commercial herring roe has been drastically below the average. In the 2015-16 season, in San Francisco Bay, the commercial catch was 66% of the allotted quota. While there have been large fluctuations in the Herring roe harvest over the last ten years, with ocean conditions largely the cause according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), the warmer surface temperatures that reduce ocean productivity may become the new normal. Any long term depletion of the Pacific Herring population will also have a negative impact on the entire ecosystem that they feed.

After three weeks in care, both of these geese were cleared for release. We returned them to Humboldt Bay. We don’t know yet how Herring are doing this year. We don’t really know if conditions are improving. We only know that the pressures that industrial society has put on Mother Earth are a burden for all. We ask the fish and the geese and the field and the sea to provide us our food just as we poison and maim the world that sustains them. We have our work cut out for us. With your support we struggle each day to help our neighbors here at home on the one wild world we know. Thank you for being a part of this life-saving work.

Humboldt Bay is a refuge in a changing world. Preserving wild habitat will only become more urgent.

A last long look… for more information on opportunities to see Brant locally, visit the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge

all photos: Laura Corsiglia/Bird Ally X

Freedom’s Greetings

Posted on December 6, 2016 by Monte Merrick

Each year we send a card to our mailing list offering our thanks and asking for continued support! Here’s this years! Expect it in your mailbox soon if you’re on our snail mail list! Freedom’s Greeting!

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Season’s Greetings, Friend of Wildlife!

What a tumultuous year 2016 has been! Yet from a contentious US election to increasingly alarming news regarding our shared environment, through it all, we’ve been here, providing care for our region’s injured and orphaned wild animals, helping people peacefully resolve conflicts with wild animals, and our Wildlife Ambassador program has gone to grade schools and social clubs promoting co-existence with our wild neighbors.

In 2016, Bird Ally X put on workshops teaching important skills to the next generation of wildlife rehabilitators, as well as worked with state and national professional associations to provide continuing education opportunities for rehabilitators of every skill level.

It’s a tough world, ours – and preparation is required. Any raccoon can tell you that curiosity and learning are keys to a successful life.

Each year we raise over two dozen orphaned raccoons. Lacking a mother, their education falls on us.

So we prepare our young patients to forage for appropriate, natural food, become familiar with natural features, even find fish in a stream in our simulated river that runs through our raccoon housing!

Fruit is found on trees, insects in logs, fish in streams – this knowledge plus a healthy fear of human beings is our recipe for raccoon success.

In some ways, we are in the same boat as our raccoon patients, struggling to live right, facing a separation from Mother Earth that we didn’t ask for yet need to cross in order to survive and thrive.

Your support allows us to teach and learn. Each year our care improves. Each year we reach more people. Each year we strive for a better world, no matter who thinks they run the show, no matter what calamity surrounds us. No matter what fate we’ll share, little by little, with your support, we’ll continue to pay back our debt to the Wild.

Thank you for being here for us, our Wild Neighbors, and all those who love the Wild in 2016. We wish you a warm and beautiful holiday and a joyful New Year. We look forward to meeting our mission with your support in 2017.

In alliance with the Wild,

Bird Ally X and Humboldt Wildlife Care Center

Volunteer Appreciation/Rent Party!

Posted on December 2, 2016December 3, 2016 by Monte Merrick

Every year BAX honors our dedicated volunteers with a show and a party! And we invite everyone to come help us celebrate their devotion and love for our wild neighbors. Without our volunteers, our work wouldn’t be possible. Please come join us and also help us raise much needed funds to cover the cost of our rent!

Music by The Neighbors, Medicine Baul and Rob DiPerna! Dance and Aerial Dance perfrmed by Leslie Castellano and Jessica Rubin! Poetry too (from your host and HWCC director, Monte Merrick (that’s me))

Join us Saturday, December 10, in Old Town Eureka!

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Phalarope Beats the Odds!

Posted on November 28, 2016November 29, 2016 by Monte Merrick

A week ago, a young woman attending Humboldt State University found a small bird struggling in the middle of the street where she lives. As a wildlife student, she recognized the bird as a Phalarope, a sandpiper-like bird, smaller than a Robin but larger than most Sparrows. She also knew that the bird was in trouble.

Once admitted for care, we identified the bird as a Red Phalarope (Phalaropus fulicarius). From a distance distinguishing between the different species of Phalarope when they aren’t in breeding plumage can be tricky, but we’ve sadly gotten a lot of recent “in the hand” opportunities to identify these birds. This is the eighth Red Phalarope we’ve admitted this month.

This patient was thin and weak and also had a deep laceration on the underside of her right wing. Fortunately for her, she also had a ferocious appetite and a strong desire to get on with her business. Within 5 days she’d completed her course of anti-biotics, within 6 days her laceration had healed well enough that we knew it wouldn’t be a problem for her and within 7 days she’d regained her missing body mass. We released her this morning back to Humboldt Bay, in the same locattion one of our staff had seen Red Phalaropes successfully foraging the previous day.

The women who brought this bird in to our clinic were very grateful that we were here – grateful that there is some place to take an injured wild animal. People who find injured wild animals often express this relief that we are here – they often say they don’t know what else they would have done, just that they couldn’t let the injured victim of our human-built world suffer. Often they have no money – and they’re relieved again that we don’t charge them for taking the animal into care. Frankly, it feels great to be thanked for the work we do – to know that being here is making the world a little better. And that’s why we ask for your support each time.

[Want to help us meet our critical goal of $7000 in November? Click here to Donate Now!]

Thank you for making wildlife rescue in Humboldt County a reality! Thank you for making all of our work possible. When people thank us for being here, they’re thanking you!

All photos: Laura Corsiglia / Bird Ally X

Aquatic Birds in Care

Posted on November 21, 2016November 21, 2016 by Monte Merrick

Every year, as our busy wild baby season comes to a close, aquatic birds, who breed elsewhere, come back to the Pacific Coast to overwinter. The famed Aleutian Cackling Geese, Brant, Grebes, Loons, seaducks, dabbling ducks, all use our relatively mild winters with historically food-rich waters to while away the hibernal months.

At Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, the arrival of wintering aquatic birds means a dramatic change in our caseload. Already this Autumn we have provided care for dozens of adult and juvenile aquatic birds.

For adult birds, this season is a time of comparative ease, without the responsibilities of rearing young. For this year’s young, this is their first season in the world of adults, a time of learning – learning to hunt, where to find food, learning their way around the real world, becoming independent.

The real world naturally holds threats – not every juvenile bird lives. Adults die in storms. They are caught by predators. Old age takes its toll as well. Still, it’s rare that we admit patients suffering from these natural calamities and processes.

Most patients are admitted in poor body condition – emaciated, anemic and dehydrated – obviously suffering from starvation.

This year, the usually “productive” California Current is not providing the quantity of fish needed to support the wintering population. As we noted earlier in the year, Common Murres, who raise their young on the North Coast experienced complete colony failure this year due to the absence of appropriate prey fish. (Even at our clinic we are struggling to stay in supply of food to feed our patients, due to this shortage!)

There are other causes of injury. Some of our patients this season were entangled in derelict fishing gear, and no doubt we will treat more. Derelict fishing gear is a global problem that makes itself known locally everywhere.

Typically each year we treat waterfowl, geese and ducks, that have been legally shot by hunters, but not killed, that have been found later by someone else. And sometimes we admit aquatic birds with traumatic injuries that we can’t ascribe to any particular cause – wing fractures, leg fractures that may be from collisions with human infrastructure, boats, battering surf – we just don’t know.

In all cases, however, our trained staff and purpose-built facilities allow us to provide excellent care for aquatic birds – noe of which would be possible without your generous support. So as we continue through this season, scroll the photos below to see some of our recent and current patients. And get out and enjoy our wintering wild aquatic neighbors! And as usual, if you can help us meet our mission with financial support, please do! We need you!

Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata)in care, moments before her release evaluation, demonstrating that explosive flight is well within her capabilities.

Female Northern Shoveler during her release evaluation exam

Northern Shoveler wing, extended for examination. Note her delicate blue and green speculum.
Northern Shoveler flies free!

Western Grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis) feet! Very awkward on land, in the water, these feet become propellers, as the bird swiftly pursues fish for her meals.
Western Grebe wing.
Each bird receives nutritional support, is treated for parasites and given supplemental vitamins while in care.

Like many aquatic bird species, Western grebes are social and seek the comfort and safety of a like-minded community.
Even a Pacific Loon (Gavia pacifica) can be part of the gang!

Surf Scoter (Melanitta perspicillata) being released after two weeks in care, regaining lost body weight and strength.

Another Western Grebe released.
This Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) collided with a building suffering very little injury. Still this male needed a few days to recover. Upon release in his home territory at Big Lagoon he immediately circled around calling and joined a female, his likely mate.

An incredible moment as the Kingfisher flew a circle around his caregivers immediately after release.

Belted Kingfishers, like all aquatic birds, require specialized care. Bird Ally X was founded as a means to bring quality aquatic bird care to the more remote areas of our coast where experience and resources are scant. This male’s care and release at Big Lagoon is a testament to that mission.
In an awesome update to a recent story, this Pacific Loon, who was found by HWCC staff on the beach in Samoa entangled in a discarded fishing net, was just released today!
Releasing any patient is an immeasurable reward, but in another way we have a direct measure – your support. This Loon’s second chance was bought and paid for by your donation! Thank you!

Your support for our work during every season is critical. We have nearly a dozen aquatic birds in care right now, in addition to our other patients. We anticipate more to come. Each month brings us new challenges – some predictable, like the return of wintering seabirds, others less predictable, such as failing prey fish populations, sudden storms, and other emergencies. Being able to rely on you allows us to prepare for both. Your donation (click here) to help us meet our November goal of $7000 will go directly to the care of these remarkable birds who live so near to us, but whose lives are so different. Thank you!!!

Standing with Mother Earth

Posted on November 14, 2016November 15, 2016 by Monte Merrick

The results of the 2016 Presidential election surprised a lot of us. As conservationists, as lovers of the Wild, as passionate defenders of Mother Earth, many already felt that our government was not being authentically responsive to the gravity of our situation – the rising seas, the dying seas, the disappearing species, the endless stream of loss. And now we are facing an administration that has thrown what slender legal protections our natural world currently has in question; for example, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Power Act. Even if many of these protections were not enough, stripping them is certainly no improvement.

Even more disturbing is the apparent rise in cruel and hateful acts since the election. Each of us likely knows someone who has been accosted or assaulted, or who has seen strange and ersatz displays of triumphant power – from ignorantly scrawled racist graffiti to images associated with genocide and other crimes against humanity – nazi swastikas and confederate flags – on proud display. Even US flags, overlarge and billowing from the backs of pickup trucks, seem to announce a new reign of bullies in ascendancy.

In the days and weeks before the election, it became undeniably apparent that for many Americans, sexual assault, bragging of sexual assault, and blatant misogyny – the hatred of women – were not disqualifications to hold the highest office. For centuries now the connection between destruction of the land and the violation of women has been conclusively established. For those actively engaged in the protection of Mother Earth, dismantling misogyny has been integral to our work and imperative for our success.

Coupled, the stripping of legal protection for the wild and the unrestrained rise of the bully will have a negative impact on wildlife and wildlife care.

And yet even the cure may have serious repercussions for wildlife and wildlife care. While the work of large organizations to protect and strengthen federal laws that protect the wild is important; there is a real possibility that the efforts to protect what we love at the national level will absorb limited resources, sucking the oxygen out of the room, stranding small organizations who operate on the slimmest of budgets – the truly grassroots – which is where the wild lives and has her babies.

In our work, trauma, recovery, death and healing live side by side. Everyday, a gull might fly from her caregivers, free again, while another is admitted with a wing severed, hanging at the shoulder, wet, red bone under an exam light, fear in the gull’s eyes, a return to his ancestors the only hope.

People who work for the environment, for Mother Earth, have struggled a long time with the knowledge of how our society is destroying the world, destroying what all that we love depends on… Many of us were heartbroken long before this election – by the senseless destruction, the avarice, the cold calculations that value the fool’s gold beneath the forest more than the forest.

We’ve watched in horror while the losses have mounted – Mother Nature has been on the run since long before the 1970s. It’s seemed that nothing we’ve done has changed the world – a victory here, a victory there, while the machine only gets bigger, more costly, more destructive. And politics can seem a useless tool against this machine. Each president in his turn has sacrificed our collective future to some open grinder, a mountain range torn apart here, an ice sheet collapsing there…

We all know it and feel it – in our bones that are made of earth, by Mother Earth.

We must ensure that wildlife rehabilitators around the country are not stymied by the flow of support to large national organizations, even as we support their work. We will still need, especially in a world where callousness, where brutality, where thuggery, and hatred for mother earth are elevated, we will still need compassion for the injured, for the orphaned, and for the marginalized… and no one is more marginalized than wild animals… just drive down any road in your town and see the raccoon dead on the shoulder lying there bloating with not a resource turned her way.

Many people in our line of work shared emphatically their sense that this was our last shot at correcting the horrifying course that we’ve been on for decades, even as we likely all knew that we couldn’t stop this machine by replacing its operator.

Now, even inside the nausea and the fear that many of us feel, there is a way forward. There is a revolution underway – a revolution led by grandmothers, as it should be. This revolution is not for supremacy or for power. This revolution is for Mother Earth, for the wild, for the water, for the air, for the forests, for the deserts, even for us, humans of every color, of every gender, of every language.

There’s never really been a way for the USA to lead this revolution – the USA is largely responsiblefor the revolution’s necessity, through its policies that place corporate greed over the needs of the environment (i.e., wolf-eradication, fracking, mountain top removal coal mining). That USA is one of the revolution’s targets. The people of the USA have an obligation to take the necessary steps to protect the lives their government threatens.

As Dr Martin Luther King Jr said nearly 50 years ago – this country is “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” This election was the voice of that America’s violence. It’s not our voice. Now we’ve got to stand with those who protect the water, protect the air, protect the wild, protect the people.

We can honor life. We can tune the life within us to the life outside us. We can join the grandmothers, the water protectors – we can #StandwithStandingRock

We can support those who provide the care that the victims of the onslaught of violence need. Wildlife rehabilitators everywhere are a first line defense against barbaric cruelty, against totalitarian indifference to life, against the crude callous disregard for the rich and central inner life of each of us.

Mother Earth does not forget the individual. Mother Earth works at the individual level. It is individuals who are born, who live, who dream, who study the rain-cleaned air, who gaze from the high rock over the plain, who hunger and thirst, who dance and who mate, who build and create, who suffer and die. It is only individuals who can actually stand. And we stand with Mother Earth.

She really is our only hope.

Please, in these perilous times, wherever you live, remember your local wildlife care providers. We all need you.