Thank You Awesome BMW Members
A huge Thank You to everyone who has renewed their Blue Mountain Wildlife membership and/or made a year-end contribution. Your generous and on-going support fund BMW's rehabilitation and education programs. With your help, BMW provides a valuable service to the wild and human residents of eastern Oregon and southeastern Washington. You helped us accomplish amazing things in 2015. I’m confident, with your support, we will meet the challenges of 2016 as well. Thank you so very much.
New Year’s Day Releases
Thank you to Don and Toni Faust for spending New Year’s Day with the birds! They returned two Western Screech Owls and three Great Horned Owls to the wild. Toni sent the photos below.
The Screech Owls were a bit hesitant:
The first Great Horned Owl went right over Don’s head. Great Horned Owl number three posed for a final picture.
Common Loon 15-950
The last bird of 2015 was a Common Loon who crash landed in a foggy, icy parking lot at McNary Wildlife Refuge. After an exam and x-rays to make sure there were no injuries, the Loon was returned to the Columbia River for release.
Great Horned Owl 15-949
The outcome for the second to the last bird admitted in 2015 was not positive. A beautiful, female Great Horned Owl was found along a road not far from McNary Wildlife Refuge. She had a broken wing and both eyes were badly damaged. X-rays revealed she had been shot with a shotgun. The wing may well have healed, but there was no hope for her eyes.
Merlin 16-001
New Year’s Day brought a Merlin, a small member of the falcon family, with an incredibly foul smelling wound in her chest. Removal of a large amount of necrotic material (the source of the very bad smell!) revealed a huge hole in the skin and a small hole in her crop. Every time she would eat, some food would leak out of the crop into surrounding tissues. In that warm, moist environment the food began to decay. Eventually the skin over the rotting food also began to die.
With the hole in the crop repaired, she is now able to eat normally. It will take several weeks for the large wound to heal.
January 2, 2016
The second day of the new year brought a Red-tailed Hawk with a pelvis injury the result of a car collision, a Red-tailed Hawk with a head injury the result of a window strike, and a Barn Owl with a fractured coracoid (a bone in the shoulder girdle) the result of a collision with something. All have been stabilized and are showing improvement, but the prognosis for each is guarded.
Bald Eagle 16-005
January 3, 2016 brought the first Bald Eagle of the year, and sadly, the first gunshot victim. She is a huge, weighing nearly 12 pounds, immature eagle with a fractured humerus. X-rays revealed he cause of the fracture was a bullet. She was found near Wapato, WA. We will send the x-rays to Pendleton Veterinary Clinic Monday morning to be evaluated for surgery.
A Western Screech Owl with an eye/head injury and a debilitated Goldfinch who died were also admitted January 3. Seven birds in the first three days of 2016. Hopefully the birds will fare better in the coming weeks. In the mean time, thank you again for your incredibly generous support!
