WARNING: Graphic images in this update

Just so you’re forewarned: I’ve had several really nasty injuries come through this month and there are some pretty graphic photos below. Why, you ask? Because too many people assume that wildlife rehab is all cute ‘n cuddly, warm ‘n fuzzy. I’m tired of that assumption, particularly this time of year, when so many of our intakes are untreatable. So in this update, you get a better insight into what wildlife rehab is really like.

We’ll start off with a warm ‘n fuzzy: the cat-attacked flying squirrel who’s overwintering in rehab is doing quite well and should be releasable come spring. Meanwhile, he likes tasty greens such as broccoli, among other nutrient-rich delicacies he’s offered nightly. (Flyers are nocturnal.)

Earlier this month, I got a call about a dog-attacked screech owl. Since the caller was only a couple of miles from me, I broke my “meet me halfway” rule and went to fetch the screech myself. His eye was pretty messed up, and I thought it was a lost cause.

However, when I got him to Smalley’s Animal Hospital, vets Richie Hatcher and Peggy Hobby were cautiously optimistic that his eye could be saved. Since it was Peggy’s day in surgery, she carefully rinsed the eye…

…and removed the surrounding feathers…

…before stitching together the torn flesh.

Here Peggy holds the screech after she’s finished working on him. We knew his chances were 50-50 at best, given the shock and trauma, but it was worth a try. Unfortunately, he died during the night.

A few days later, I got a call about a downed red tailed hawk in Houston County.  The caller met me halfway with the bird, and she was truly trashed.

Older left leg and wing wounds were full of maggots, as was a fresher wound under the right wing. Both wings were broken, open fractures. Vet Richie Hatcher agreed immediately that the kindest thing we could do for her was to euthanize, which we did. Here you see a shot of her leg, to give you an idea of what the rest of her body looked like.

Two days later, a downed red shoulder hawk came in.

His wing was also broken, again an open fracture. Another euthanasia…

And then last week, things began to look up somewhat. This gorgeous mature female red tail came in, and vet Peggy Hobby and I could find no signs of injury. She was alert, aggressive, flared her wings beautifully…

…so we decided she was recovering from a mild concussion and decided to give her a few days. Look at those gorgeous feathers!

And this is the look of a highly peeved bird…

So…I tried yesterday to release her, and it was no go. Oh, she nailed my wrist, drawing blood through the glove, then she tried to nail the other palm but only bruised it, and then she bit me. All this would have been fine had a release followed, but she proved unable to fly. Below is a shot of the failed release attempt.

*sigh* Called Smalley’s and asked if they could X-ray to see what we missed. What we missed was a lead pellet that had broken the bone. See that shiny ball in the X-ray? Lead pellet. She’d been down long enough before coming to LWR that the entry wound had healed, and because the pellet was lodged in the bone, we couldn’t feel it or the healing break. She’ll now be with me for a month or so, since we figure the break is about 2-3 weeks old.  Raptors are federally protected birds, so this gunshot bird has been reported to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife’s Law Enforcement division.

Two days after Miss Hawk-from-hell came in, I received a crow from another rehab facility some 200 miles away. She was supposedly a nonreleasable bird, so I was getting her as a transfer for an educational bird. I wanted my vets to sign off on this, so I took her to Smalley’s for an exam, where vet Jim Hobby X-rayed the supposedly useless wing and found that it was indeed pretty badly broken, had already healed…and contained lead flecks (shiny dots on X-ray). Yep, another report to the feds…

I called the transferring facility to make sure I didn’t duplicate their report, only to discover that they hadn’t reported it because “we never do X-rays.” They’d had the bird over a month and based their assessment of nonreleasable on nothing more than a cursory physical exam. Don’t even get me started on that, okay? Needless to say, I was not a happy camper, and it’s taking all my restraint not to name and shame the facility.

And then a week later, the crow, who I was calling Nevermore, “picked the lock” on her pen door and released herself from what has previously been an escape-proof pen. (NEVER underestimate the intelligence and resourcefulness of a crow!) I don’t mean she opened the door and ran around or fluttered helplessly. Noooo, she FLEW AWAY. I watched her fly back and forth between a pine tree in my front yard and a pecan tree in my back yard for a while, just grinning. It wasn’t graceful flight, but it was powerful and coordinated. And the next morning, a flock of crows started raising an unholy racket first thing, and when I went out to check, they and Nevermore were gone. That makes me happy. Crows are clannish, and she’ll hang around the fringes of the group for a while before being fully accepted, but the fact that they let her fly away with them is an excellent sign that she’ll eventually be accepted into the group.  Nonreleasable, my arse!

Two days after Nevermore came in, yet another red tail showed up with a broken wing. This was another female, but a first-year bird this time.

Contrast this face with the face shot of the mature female above—there’s just that much difference in their personalities, too. This first-year bird is a more typical laid-back red tail.

Vet Shelley Baumann (yep, I pretty much made the rounds of the vets at Smalley’s this month!) X-rayed the wing and found a clean, fresh break…

…so we wrapped her wing and will be checking her progress weekly.

Just a reminder—2012 LWR calendars are available from CafePress: http://www.cafepress.com/LaurensWildlifeRescue. These are print-on-demand, meaning that CafePress prints them as you order them. They’re $19.99, which I realize is pricey for a calendar, but only $5 of that actually benefits LWR; the rest goes to CafePress. I have to say that I’m a bit disappointed that so far only two calendars have been ordered.  Folks talk big about how they support our efforts, but apparently it’s mostly talk, since only one order for two calendars has been placed. These are not stock photos; they’re 12 full-color photos of wildlife I’ve actually had in rehab over the past few years.  These are all critters who benefitted first-hand from the efforts of Laurens Wildlife Rescue. As I’ve reminded you often enough, it’s not cheap to rehab our native wildlife, and “admiration and respect” don’t fill furry bellies or feathered crops.

Have a good Thanksgiving, and remember that there will also be only one update in December.