Seymour- a Guest Post by Jennifer Winograd

He was just a flash of white in the gutter as we drove quickly by—a brief impression seen from the corner of our eyes that somehow didn’t seem right. Was that a pigeon? Better double back and check. It happens to us a lot—seeing phantom injured animals along the road side that require a closer look. Most of the time, thankfully, the phantom turns out to be nothing—a shoe, or a crumpled bit of paper or a piece of garbage—and we can go back about our business, grateful and relieved to know there is nothing more to worry about. But sometimes, sadly, it is an animal, and an animal that is still alive. Over the years, we’ve rescued injured cats, a squirrel, crows, a cormorant, lots of pigeons, and twice, dead mother opossums with live babies in their pouches. This was to be one of those times. As we drove slowly by, that flash of white was no longer there—a bad sign. So we pulled over and began a search. That is when we found him—the little flyer we would come to name Commander Seymour Higgins—huddled behind the back wheel of a large, parked truck, a wing hanging low and limp by his side.

After stopping into a few businesses to get the necessary equipment—a box and an old blanket, we caught him. He was tired and weak so it was easy to do. After chasing him out from under the truck, we cornered him in a doorway, and gently covered him with the blanket. Now we could get him to a wildlife rehabilitation facility where they would patch him up, give him several weeks of TLC, and release him back to his home, his flock, his life. At least, that is what we thought would happen. That is what we have naively thought had been happening all along, all these years, with all the injured or orphaned animals we’ve taken to local wildlife rehab facilities. We now fear that in so many of those cases, we were wrong.

Shortly after dropping Seymour at a local veterinary office that does wildlife rehab, we called to see if they had determined the extent of his injury. The vet we spoke to told us that Seymour had a fractured humerus—equivalent to the bone that runs from the shoulder to our elbow in our own arms. She explained that fixing it required surgery, and that were he a rare or endangered bird, they would do it. But given that he was, in her words, “just a pigeon,” making that sort of investment wouldn’t “make sense.” And since he may never be able to fly again, she told us that the only humane thing to do was to kill him. We were stunned.

This bird did not have a life-threatening injury; he had a fractured bone. If they killed him, it wouldn’t be for his benefit, it would be out of convenience. According to her, since he was born the wrong species—a pigeon instead of a peregrine falcon—his wing wasn’t worth fixing, even though this particular hospital raises thousands of dollars from animal lovers in our community every year for wildlife rehabilitation.

So we did what we had to do—we bit our tongues so that we could get Seymour out of danger. We smiled and bailed him out of the vet who refused to provide him any care other than a complimentary killing unless we paid for it, and took him to another vet specializing in wildlife rehabilitation. Again, we were treated to a discussion that revealed in what low regard Seymour’s life was held by those who were supposed to be his advocates: we were told that the clinic would be willing to take Seymour into their wildlife rehabilitation program and to perform the surgery for free, but only with the understanding that if, in the end, the surgery did not succeed in returning him to flight, he would be killed, and returning him to us for a lifetime of care instead would not be an option. With the dawning awareness that we had just pulled back a curtain on a very ugly side of wildlife rehabilitation, and desperate for Seymour to get the care he needed, we told them to perform the surgery on our behalf, and we would assume full responsibility for him, whatever the outcome.

At one point during the exam, we asked the vet if she believed Seymour was in much pain. “We can’t say for sure,” she answered. “But we can assume he is. After all, their biology is similar to ours. And we can therefore assume that what would cause us pain, would cause them pain, too.” Good advice, we thought, but wondered how when it came to the matter of life and death—the most grave and weighty decision of them all—this compelling similarity broke down?

How many other pigeons did we deliver to their deaths, thinking that we had done the right thing by taking them to a local wildlife rehabilitation facility? Looking back, I don’t know what it was that made me call to check up on Seymour as I had failed to do in all those other cases. Whatever its cause, I am glad I listened to that nagging doubt and followed up. Not only because I was able to save a life, and not only because I will be wiser and more discerning about whom to trust in the future, but because it brought Seymour, and then Eileen, into our lives.

When it became clear that, in addition to a broken bone Seymour had also suffered permanent nerve damage and would never fly again, we started to make arrangements for a lifetime of care. We contacted MickaCoo for advice on how to make Seymour as comfortable as possible in our home, and were told that one of the most important things for a pigeon’s well-being is the companionship of another pigeon. And so, not long after, we adopted Eileen from MickaCoo, a sweet, gentle, pigeon rescued by a kind woman in the South Bay who paid for her severely injured leg to be amputated. And then we began to research how to provide our friends with an environment that would be the next best thing to freedom.

Today, Seymour and Eileen live in an aviary on one of our balconies, overlooking the forest in the Oakland hills. They get fresh air and sunlight, and Eileen can even fly short distances. And little Seymour has transformed. As each of the wildlife rehabilitators that wanted to kill him predicted, Seymour did, initially, struggle with captivity. In the beginning, he was fearful, and he even seemed unhappy, a feeling compounded, no doubt, by the pain of his recovery, the pills I had to force down his throat twice a day, and the foreignness of his new life. But no longer. Fully recovered from his surgery, eating well, and no doubt happy for the companionship of Eileen, Seymour is a different bird than the one who first came to live with us. Last month he finished molting, and as his bedraggled feathers were replaced one by one with fresh, new ones, it was as though Seymour was reborn. Our once skinny, depressed, cowering little bird blossomed, and now does all the things that pigeons like to do: staring at his reflection in the mirror, claiming ownership of anything and everything in the aviary, and enjoying the abundant, tasty seeds he is offered daily. One recent afternoon, after he and Eileen happily splashed in a bath of warm water for half an hour, followed by a good preening, they both retreated to their favorite spots and took long naps in the sun. They looked so content. Although this summer was a tough one for both of them, they did what we all must do when life gets us down: we weather it, and come out on the other side, happy to be alive.

Life. That is what we would choose for ourselves. And despite all of the rationalizations built up to justify convenience killing by some wildlife rehabilitators—that is what every single animal would choose for themselves if given the choice. As No Kill advocates have done for animals in shelters, “No Kill” wildlife rehabilitators who do not subscribe to these views should likewise challenge the unethical assumptions upon which life and death calculations for so many injured wild animals are being based. If not, animals who could be saved will keep being killed, the public will continue to be misled by self-proclaimed “experts” that killing animals who are not mortally ill or injured is the right thing to do, and naive but well-intended animal lovers like us who think they are giving the injured animals they find a second chance at a wildlife rehabilitation facility will continue to unknowingly deliver birds like Seymour out of one danger and into an even graver one.

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Jennifer Winograd is a founding Board member of the No Kill Advocacy Center, a national, non-profit organization dedicated to ending the systematic killing of animals in “shelters.” By challenging the false assumptions and excuses historically given by animal shelters to justify the annual killing of four million dogs and cats in our nation’s pounds and humane societies, and by promoting an alternative, life-affirming model of animal sheltering called the “No Kill Equation,” the No Kill Advocacy Center has inspired and assisted in the creation of No Kill communities throughout the United States.