The Gull I Didn't Rescue

Last week I did something that is very, very hard for me. I saw an animal in trouble and left it alone.

I was walking my dog along the bay at Candlestick Point when I noticed a gull that let us get closer than healthy, able-bodied gulls do.

I tied up my patience-of-a-saint dog Monkey and went closer to see what the matter was. As I approached, it stood up and I could see that its legs and feet were intact and uninjured but very pale (likely anemia).

When I pressed a little closer, it flew to another rock so I could see that its wings functioned but it landed close by on another rock rather than out on the water so that was a bad sign. It was feeling so poorly that it chose to forgo the safety of the water for the warmer, nearer rock.

I was able to get within about four feet of it and it gave a quiet squawk and attempted to vomit though nothing came up. Both are signs of desperate stress that I've seen before. I backed up to take some pressure off of him.

I've rescued several gulls before, both through public wildlife rescue centers and via private vets and rehabbers. My experience has been pieces of success swallowed up by failure on the whole.

This gull was catchable and clearly ill but I decided to leave it alone. If I had thought that he could be saved and returned to his life, I would have caught him and carried him home in one hand with my dog's lead in the other as I have done several times before.

But I believed that my catching this weak bird who was already so stressed by my presence would only result in his very unpeaceful death so I left him alone. It is SO much harder for me to leave them alone than it is to intervene.

I stepped back a few additional feet to further relieve his distress and took a single picture with my cell phone. I felt a little guilty even doing that.



Later that afternoon, I returned with some dog kibble for him in case a meal would offer some comfort. He was in the same place, just as I knew he would be. I left the kibble but he was more relieved to see me go again than he was happy to see the food. I think he was too far gone to have much hunger left.

Two days later I returned to find him dead just like I knew I would. Most of the dead gulls I find at this part of the beach are intact- not killed by predators (unlike another section about a mile south where the carcasses always show signs of predation) and I believe he died relatively peacefully.

This is where he died and what he saw while he was dying.

He's the gull I left in peace.