Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Pigeons, seabirds, and another bear.

I was at the wild life center today and I’ll admit it was a fairly slow wildlife day. It’s weird cause its spring time and in spring we are supposed to have a bunch of babies who need to be taken care of. But so far this year we have only gotten a rare call or two about babies, but none have been dropped off yet. Once the babies arrive we get a ton more insane, because depending on the species, some have to be tube fed every half hour.  We have had a fair amount of releases in the last two weeks and many of our long time animals have been set free again.  There have been a few tragedies as well. My favorite little flying squirrel with a head tilt started to develop leg swelling and had to be euthanized.  Its sad when its cases like that where he hung out for almost two months and seemed to be improving, then suddenly takes such a turn for the worst.
 
Here is the little guy all nestled up in his nest.  Sad that he didn't make it.
The main thing that I had to do today was to clean out the room with all the pigeons. We have now moved the not so baby pigeons in with the other adult pigeons, so it’s like 10 birds all together. Needless to say they make a huge mess and having to clean them took me a long time.  I was endlessly sweeping to the point were I seriously have a blister in the middle of my palm.  it’s a great sign though that all the bird are in together, it means that they are all very close to being released. It’s like the last step before release day, so hopefully later in the week or next, they will all be back in the wild thriving.  I tried to take as many pictures as I could while I was cleaning them today. They are kind of cute and honestly I’ll miss the little guys when they are gone.






In other wildlife news today we were all a buzz about the recent arrival of our 7th bear cub, a female Black Bear cub from Oregon. The cub was captured on March 10 after she was spotted wandering around the town of Central Point, with her mother nowhere in sight. Although she appears to be over a year old, the cub has had a rough first year. She was very weak when captured, weighing in barely over 10 pounds and completely emaciated.The cub spent nine days in the care of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and was examined by a veterinarian. She had no injuries, but her blood work showed that she was suffering from severe anemia. She was fed and kept comfortable, and by the time she arrived at the wildlife center she had begun to perk up a little. She huffed and smacked her lips at them,  as they transferred her from her transport carrier to one of the large bear enclosures. It was meant to be a threat display, but it was almost comical coming from such a tiny little bear everyone said.

this picture makes her look brown but she is really almost black.
Today they captured her and were able to do a pretty through exam without having to knock her out. That's a very bad thing cause it means that she is weak enough that she has no fight in her. Not a great sign for a one year old bear cub.  I got to stand in the doorway as that exam was going on. It was way awesome because that’s the closest I have been to a real live bear, well without something like a huge plane of glass or it being unconscious before. She is soooo tiny and skinny, poor thing. It’s amazing that a bear over a year old can fit in a tiny dog crate. I bet this cub and my dog could totally share the same kennel. Well expect for the whole being a bear part and probably wanting to eat my dog.

her exam... she was so weak that they didn't even need to drug her.

Hopefully after a week or so of being here in an enclosure alone she can be healthy enough to join the other 6 bears that we also have at the moment. We have 3 males and 3 females that have been with us a couple for over a year now. In the wild cubs stay with their moms for the first 2 years so sometimes it takes that long until they are healthy and smart enough to be able to be released and live successfully in the wild.  I hear that there is talk of maybe releasing two of the cubs in summer but I don’t know if that has been decided for sure yet.

The other things that we had going on were a few sea bird with various injuries. Nothing major and hopefully they will all be able to recover soon. They are getting tube fed every few hours and both get to have a few hours in water to swim and the rest of the time in a netted cage that's dry.   I honestly didn't do very much with them except move one from the water tank to the non-water tank using a sheet and a net.  Anyways that was the highlight of my day a few random birds, a whole lot of pigeons and a  tiny little bear. Since its now spring everything is getting much more green and leafy, all the  wild birds are out and about,  it’s so pretty and chipper sounding. I love getting to be outside with it all because it’s so natural and such. It makes me really happy.

this is the one I moved.

This was the other cool bird there today.

1 comment:

  1. thanks for sharing these heart warming stories and beautiful wildlife pictures..this is wonderful work you are doing Martha.Big HUGS for that!

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