the rescue report: One that can be saved

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

One that can be saved

I took my dog for a walk to Candlestick Point a couple of hours ago, where we always go. We've been going there at least every weekend for more than five years. After the oil spill last November, the shore bird mortality went way up. I'd always see a dead bird on occasion but for the months of November and December, even though there was no visible oil, there were dead and dying birds all over there. I took a female lesser scaup (11/19) and a blue-legged avocet (11/21) to WildCare, a seagull (December) to the Peninsula Humane Society (all dying of starvation and none of which survived) and two large garbage bags of bird bodies to SF ACC so that they would be transported to IBRRC and counted with all the other casualties.

Things improved slightly in the new year and, to be honest, I stopped walking in the places where I'd seen the most. It was too terrible. I've contacted a number of agencies but don't know what if any good it's done. Something is giving these birds a bad time. Most look like they just laid down and died and the dying ones that I caught were feather and bone.

Today (and in the past couple of weeks), I've been seeing dead seagulls which is bad (worse for them) but what's really tough is seeing the dying ones. I can't always catch them (and feel terrible chasing around a dying bird that I fail to help in any way) and even the ones I've caught haven't fared well. Not sure why but I went looking a little farther today (into the area I had stopped going to) and sure enough, there's a seagull in trouble. They stand (or sit) way off from the other birds and above the high tide line in sandy (not rocky) areas.

I hitched my dog's leash to a log and angled across the marsh to try and catch it. My dog is so good and familiar with this- he just sits down and watches me have all the fun.

The shore birds always head for the water so you have to cut them off before they get there. This one ran as best it could which was almost enough to get away from me but I'd seen the red and white of a fishing float stuck to it and that meant fishing line entanglement and maybe some hope and so that encouraged me and I kind of hit the gas at the last minute and caught it. It's amazing that it was able to move at all because it had fishing line plus the float and a lead sinker and four hooks binding its right leg to its right wing.

I grabbed its beak and held it together (they bite with surprising force considering they have no teeth) and wrapped it in my jacket and started back across the marsh to get my dog and walk home. There were four other dead seagulls along the same bit of beach. None of them were fishing line entanglements but I've seen dead ones with their feet bound by fishing line before and it is an incredibly sad, pathetic sight.

We walked home the mile and a half which felt like it took forever with this seagull who wanted nothing more than to get away from me and me trying to communicate to it that I was part of the solution, not the problem. My efforts failed. It hated me the whole way home.

We had a surprising development though when we did get home. I gave him a quick bit of water on the beak (dehydration is always a big problem in these cases), mostly just to say, "Look, good stuff coming" and then got the wire clippers and took him into the bathroom. To get the fishing line off, I needed to unwrap him from my jacket and use both hands. At first he wasn't happy but as soon as I started getting knots of line and that stupid float cut off of him, he was a lot more cooperative. Not limp-and-dying cooperative but like, "Yeah- get that shit off of me. I've been trying to get rid of that for days!"

Once untangled, I put him in a crate with some soaked cat and dog kibble and then he REALLY got happy. He was so hungry, poor thing. He didn't care that he was in a dog crate in a house full of parrot sounds eating cat food with some lady taking his picture with a really big camera. He was just so happy to be eating. He hasn't tried to bite me since. He's been drinking his water with sugar and salt, too- important for restoring potassium and electrolytes. Now he's resting.

I was thrilled to see that though trussed up in a bad way, the injury to his right leg (the bad one) looks superficial. The (webbed) foot still works, he can bear weight on it and I think will heal quickly now that there's no more fishing line cutting into it. He even stood still and let me rub Heal-X Aloe Soother (my bird vet's favorite thing) on it. The hook into his wing came out of feather shaft rather than flesh so I think he's OK (and lucky) on that count too. His good leg has a weird swelling in the ankle that I think needs to be looked at but I'm really optimistic that finally, I've got one that can be saved.

It feels so nice to make an injured bird that is already miserable and only made more so by being chased and caught and handled feel good. It's the best. The only thing better will be setting him free.