As of this moment, LWR has received a record-setting 302 intakes for the year. There may be another coming in today; there’s all of December yet to come. This is approximately double the number of intakes we usually see in a given year, hence our current funding crisis.
And our funds remain dangerously low, with about enough for one, maybe two, more mouse orders. This is not hype, it’s a true funding crisis, folks; when the money runs out, the doors shut until we can get the funds to reopen—and I’ll have to start turning away birds if I’m going to have enough food to keep the barnies and flyers fed through the winter, so we may be looking at shutting down for at least the month of December.
The fundraiser is now running in extended time. We did receive three additional donations last week, pushing the total to $1065 and leaving just $435 to go to meet the original goal of $1500. That deficit could be the deciding factor in whether we can remain operative through December—and if we shut down, there’s effectively nowhere to take raptors or songbirds in the southern half of the state, so please donate generously to allow LWR to remain open and continue to provide our injured wild birds a safe haven.
The barbed wire great horned owl and the fledgling pigeon also required euthanasia. Vet Peggy Hobby of Smalley’s Animal Hospital saw both and while x-rays showed no fractures to the GHO’s wing, there was too much exposed bone all along the wing and her eye was beyond trashed.
The poor pigeon was already getting pressure sores on his hocks from his deformed legs, and Peggy agreed with my initial assessment that it was too late in the bird’s development to attempt corrective measures.
Late Thanksgiving evening, LWR received a call from a couple desperately seeking help for a hawk they’d rescued from the side of the road. When they arrived with the bird, a first-year Cooper’s hawk, nothing seemed broken and his crop was bigger than his head, leading me to believe he might’ve just been a sluggish flyer because he was over-full.
However, in wildlife rehab, almost nothing is as it initially appears…
When he was boxed for the night, he refused to stand, sitting back on his hocks and tail. Coops are notoriously stressy birds, so I chalked it up to stress and fear. The next day, however, when I took him to the raptor flight, intending to test-fly him and release him, it was a no-go. His flight was more a series of short, awkward hops and he kept falling to his side—and his tail tended to skew to one side. Not good. It looked like lower spinal or pelvic trauma of some sort, although he was fully able to grasp the gloves with his feet.
Yeah, other folks fight crowds for bargains on Black Friday; I fought a pissed-off Coop to get him back inside and on a doughnut to ease pressure on the spine/pelvis until he can get x-rays Monday. (Smalley’s was closed from Thanksgiving through today for a well-deserved long weekend.) The good news is that he is attempting to stand for short periods of time and his appetite is undiminished, so I’m hopeful we can sort out his issues and aim at release.
The barnies have outgrown yet another box and are feathering out nicely. They’re also starting to pick up their own food, which is good, since when they outgrow this box, their next move will be to the raptor flight (unless it’s occupied at the time, in which case the rehab bathroom will be their new digs for a while). And they need to be self-feeding before going into the raptor flight, ‘cause as much as I love these rascals, I ain’t draggin’ myself outside in the cold at midnight to hand-feed ‘em—nope, just ain’t gonna happen…
I also snapped a few individual shots of them as they were moved to their bigger box—such adorable rascals!