Farewell Katie, We Wish You the Very Best!
We bid a fond farewell to intern Katie on Saturday. Eight weeks goes by so quickly. We will miss her ready smile and energy. We will be a bit short-handed for the next three weeks. The intern scheduled to be here the beginning of August was unable to come at the last minute. Reinforcements will arrive in about three weeks!
Golden Eagle 19-406
He is another starving fledgling, found in the mountains east of Pendleton, rescued by a Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation wildlife technician. The eagle is emaciated, starved to the point that his gut will not tolerate solid food. He’s also anemic.
BMW’s intake protocol includes basic bloodwork, including determining the bird’s packed cell volume (the amount of red blood cells they have). We do this by putting a small amount of blood in two very tiny glass tubes (hematocrit tubes), plugging one end of the tube with clay, and spinning the blood in a centrifuge. The red blood cells are packed at the bottom of the tube, hence the term “packed cell volume." There is typically a very tin layer of white blood cells called the buffy coat, and the remainder of the tube is filled with a clear liquid, the serum.
This eagle’s blood looked very strange. I believe he has the thickest buffy coat I have ever seen. Typically, a thick buffy coat means there are lots of white blood cells because the bird is fighting an infection. We have seen some cases where a thick buffy coat was caused by a heavy load of a blood parasite called leukocytozoan. I’m willing to bet that this eagle is loaded with leucocytozoan. We will know as soon as we can look at his blood under a microscope, which we will do as soon as the blood smears are stained. I’ll share the rest of the story next week!
