Tag: wildlife rehabilitation
Did Your Pot Kill A Hawk?
Last Saturday, the 22nd of February, the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) and Environmentally Sound Productions put on a benefit concert to raise money for a campaign to get rat poisons out of marijuana production. Bird Ally X /Humboldt Wildlife Care Center supports this effort wholeheartedly. So we drove down to set up an information table at the show and spoke briefly regarding the impact of rat poisons on local wild animals, including the orphans that result when parents are killed! While we don’t endorse the idea of using any poison, second generation anti-coagulants (such as D-Con, etc.) are particularly nasty. We’ll have more on rat poisons soon.
Did Your Pot Kill a Hawk? expect to see this in the coming months!
Bird Ally X poster promoting rodenticide-free wildlife!
how smart is killing the sea?
California Red-sided Garter Snake in Care
A student at Humboldt State University found a snake on the sidewalk near his dorm last Saturday that didn’t move away from him as he approached. Of course a wild animal in good health would have fled. He didn’t know the species but he knew something was the matter. He called our clinic and one of our dedicated volunteers drove up to the campus to pick up the snake. While many of us are very familiar with Common Garter snakes, greenish with yellow stripes, this snake turned out to be a local subspecies, the California Red-sided Garter Snake, and his appearance is quite lovely!
Two-thirds down his length, the snake suffered a small laceration. Soon we’ll have radiographs that will determine the extent of any skeletal damage.
For now the snake is comfortably healing. While no wild patient is out of the woods until they are out of captivity, this snake enjoys a good prognosis.
Thank you for supporting wildlife rehabilitation for all species! Your donation makes care for this snake and all our wild patients possible! Please contribute today!
Poll: Non-natives? and Carl Safina on Mute Swans in New York
Non-natives, invasive species, – in North America most, but not all, brought over from Europe with colonists – these interlopers can present some serious problems to the ecosystems in which they’re introduced. Often the attempts to mitigate their presence divide communities.
Click on the photo to read Carl Safina (Eye of the Albatross, Song for the Blue Ocean) on the planned eradication of Mute Swans (pop 2200) from the state of New York. And if you’d like to take this poll, we’ll be discussuing the results after the weekend…
Derelict Fishing Gear Keeps on Killing
Hooked by Unattended Line, Western Gull Heals and is Released
At a quarter to five a couple of Sundays ago, just as we were completing the day’s tasks and getting ready to leave the clinic, the phone rang. An employee at Pacific Seafood, a fish processing facility on the Eureka waterfront, had spotted a gull nearby who was tied to some fishing line. We quickly fed the last couple of patients and headed out to take a look.
Fish hooks and fishing line cause numerous wildlife injuries. The toll fishing gear takes on marine birds, reptiles, and mammals (not to mention the targeted species!) numbers in the thousands along the California coast alone each year. (see study here) According to the Humane Society of the United States (link here) over a million marine animals are killed each year by “longline” fishing at sea.
(a collection of hooks and other items removed from patients at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center)
Hook and line injuries are commonplace for all wildlife rehabilitators, especially in locations where wildlife and people co-exist in large numbers – San Francisco, Monterey Bay, Los Angeles…
When we arrived on the scene, the fellow who called was standing a few yards from an adult Western Gull (link), who was trapped on the wharf, a hook in his (or her) neck attached to a line tied to the railing. Someone had been fishing and left his rig in the water. The gull had tried to eat the bait and gotten hooked.
We netted the gull and wrapped her (or him) in a towel. We made a quick examination to see if the hook could be immediately removed. Sometimes, with a quick snip of the barbed end, the hook comes out, and the small wound is fine to heal on its own – the bird can be released right away. In this case, however, the hook was small and difficult to see in the fading late afternoon light. For safety’s sake, we brought the gull back to our Bayside clinic.
Under the examination light, the small hook was easy to see. After removing it, we found a deep pocket of pus inside the gull’s mouth – an old infected injury. The bird’s feet also had early stage pressure sores caused by a life spent on concrete.
There is no getting around the fact that in a very short time modern industrial civilization has re-shaped the world that we share with other animals, other life. Derelict fishing gear, automobiles, ocean pollution, climate disruption, domestic animals, glass windows, resource extraction, – the list is long and each threat is new. All the marine birds we see today have existed as they are for at least 20 million years (Gaston 2004). Each of this gull’s injuries was the result of civilization’s altered environment.
The infection in our patient’s mouth required a course of antibiotics. We gave the first dose and set up safe housing for the night, fed some fish that had no sharp surprises, turned off the lights and headed home.
The next morning we moved the bird to our aviary built especially for gulls, pelicans, and cormorants – all marine birds who spend time in and out of water. With a large pool, an artificial rock wall, high perches and a substrate (all surfaces that the birds might perch on) intended to relieve the constant pressure on their delicate feet, this aviary is a key part of our rehabilitation program. When treating wild animals, patient housing plays a leading role in their recovery.
Over the course of the next ten days the gull’s condition swiftly improved. The deep wound inside his mouth healed, the punctures from the hook healed. Her (or his) feet had improved too.
Last Tuesday the gull was released at North Jetty. Once out of the box, the bird took time to preen – which is how birds maintain their feather condition. Besides allowing flight, the feathers of all birds protect them from the elements. For aquatic birds this is particularly necessary – as warm blooded animals who live in the cold North Pacific need an impeccable array of feathers simply to surivive. Once satisfied that all was well, s/he launched from the rocks out over the inlet to Humboldt Bay and was gone.
There are many things you can do to help prevent this kind of injury to wild animals:
- Most importantly, if you fish, mind your gear. Try not to leave anything in the environment. Line, hooks, weights, all of these can produce fatal and torturous wounds.
- If you find derelict gear in the environment, remove it! Every hook removed from the docks, beaches and river banks is a hook we won’t ever have to remove from a bird’s mouth.
- Pass this information along!
- Support wildlife rehabilitation. Our ability to do this work depends directly on community support. BAX/HWCC is not funded by the county, state or federal governments. Your contribution makes our work possible. Thank you!
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Release Photographs!
HWCC/BAX volunteers prepare to release the Western Gull
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Western Gull steps out to freedom
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Preening keeps feather at peak performance
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Tail feathers? check.
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Wings? check.
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So long….
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Out over the inlet to Humboldt Bay and toward the North Pacific Ocean
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S/he returns to a wild and free life
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Good luck!
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photos: Laura Corsiglia/BAX
Reference:
Gaston, Anthony J., Seabirds: A Natural History, 2004 Yale University Press
Raccoons love rivers…
be an ally to the wild!
Bufflehead, one of the smallest ducks, named after the mighty mammal of the Plains!
The teenager who called our clinic late on Monday thought the duck he’d found had a broken wing. We asked where he’d found the bird.
“On a sandbar in the river.”
He said the duck was black and white.
Finding a wild animal out of place – a baby bird on the ground, a bat in a doorway, a hawk by the side of the road – is outside the ordinary. Many people live their lives entirely without this experience.
Our clinic had already closed and the young man and the bird were an hour away with no way to get here. We would have to ask a volunteer to drive down to Rio Dell the next morning. We gave him instructions on how to keep the bird safe overnight – to place the bird in a box with a towel at the bottom and a lid that closes, to not give food or water, and to keep the injured and frightened animal away from any people or pets and our noises – an unused room is ideal. A heating pad on low can be placed under half the box so the animal can move toward or away from the heat, whichever is more comfortable.
Of course, over the phone it is impossible to be certain what the real situation is. But it is hunting season and this kid was down by the Eel River. It was perfectly imaginable that a goose or duck had been shot and wounded. We have treated many waterfowl who’d been shot and found, still alive, but flightless, trapped on the ground, helpless. We treat and release geese and ducks with this kind of injury commonly. It’s also true that many patients who’ve been shot do not survive.
One of Humboldt Wildlife Care Center’s regular volunteers came in first thing the next morning. He was happy to make the drive.
It takes a little bit of courage to transport injured wild animals. Injuries, especially gunshots, are not that much fun to see. Often we bring patients in who must be humanely euthanized due to the severity of their wounds. It may seem like a simple task – drive there, drive back – no radio or chit chat or smoking when the patient is in the car, but otherwise, simple. In fact it is an act that can change a volunteer’s entire perspective. While navigating the traffic of any town with an injured wild animal in your car you can’t help but begin to see a city through wild eyes.
As it turned out the duck was indeed a black and white duck. She was a Bufflehead – cousin to mergansers, scoters, eiders, goldeneyes, and long-tailed ducks – an awesome little duck who winters all around Humboldt Bay. You will see Bufflehead out in the open water of the bay, in the nooks and crannies of the bay’s shore as well as in the wide parts where rivers cross their flood plains on their way to the bay. Bufflehead are almost everyhere in winter.
This lady duck seemed perfectly healthy. Her exam revealed no significant injuries. Her small feet had a few very small scrapes. She definitely did not have a broken wing.
Often people who rescue birds, especially marine birds, assume a wing injury is the reason that the bird doesn’t fly away. Some animals live so remotely from most human experience that we don’t even recognze them when they come near. Everybody can identify a robin and would know if one is in trouble. In the case of aquatic birds, especially those who spend their entire lives on water, simply being on land is a sign that something could be wrong. Often these birds require an expanse of water to run across, building speed to become airborne. On land, they are grounded.
The thick coat of feathers seaducks and other primarily aquatic birds wear is what allows them to spend their lives in cold rivers and salt chucks. With no other obvious injury, the next possible problem we look for is with her waterproofing. A duck who gets wet, especially all the way down to her skin, will not be able to stay in water. This leads to death, eventually – water is where the food is.
To test her waterproofing, we have a specially-built warmwater tank (warm water is safer – if she is not waterproof, she won’t get cold). After a period of time we evaluate her feathers to make sure they are keeping her dry.
Each time we checked on her, she was under water swimming in circles looking for a way out. While she was obviously feeling stressed, her constant diving was a good sign.
Soon we moved her to a cold pool. She dove immediately. We rigged a food dish in her pool – fish, mealworms – and gave her a small platform made of netting in case she needed to get out of the water. We planned to leave her in the pool overnight.
While the duck swam in the cold pool, the young man who rescued her called. We let him know she was in good condition, no wing injury, no fractures.
“So, you found her at the river?”
“Yeah, she couldn’t fly away.”
“Well, you know ducks like her are mostly on water. They can’t really walk or run on land – they need open water to get back in the air. If you hadn’t rescued her, she would have been really vulnerable to a predator, like a coyote.”
“Yeah,” he said, “there were cats all over there.”
“Well, it’s lucky for her you came along, then.”
And it’s true. This Bufflehead was lucky this young man had come along. She’d suffered a common mishap. For whatever reason, sometimes water birds find themselves on land, stranded. Often it’s wet pavement that looks like a body of water. Sometimes rough surf tosses birds to the shore. Occasionally, injuries or contaminants, like oil, force aquatic birds from the water. In her case, we’ll never know. We only had her vibrant and healthy condition to go on.
The next morning when we checked her, she was perfectly dry and still diving to get away from us. She was clearly ready to get back home.
The same volunteer who’d gone to Rio Dell to pick her up was available to release her. Considering how many animals he’d brought in who didn’t make it, it was especially nice to ask him if he wanted to ride with her back to the Eel River for her return to her wild and free life.
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Want to help return an animal to the wild? We are now accepting volunteers. And as always, your support makes our work possible. Your contribution goes directly to the rescue and care of injured and orphaned wild animals and to educating toward a responsible and respectful relationship with Mother Earth. Thank you!
(all photos: Laura Corsiglia/BAX)
