Owl Release Times Two
Truth really is stranger than fiction. The day after Mother’s Day we received a call from Washington Fish and Wildlife in Yakima. A man had captured an adult Western Screech Owl (we don’t know the circumstances) and given it to his wife as a Mother’s Day gift. The wife turned her husband in to WDFW and the owl was confiscated. Not knowing how or why the man had been able to capture the owl, volunteers Wayne, Mark, Guislen and Bob helped transport the owl to Pendleton (150 miles!). Fortunately, a physical exam found the owl to be healthy and uninjured. Volunteers Toni and Don returned the owl and Toni sent the release photo below.
On the same trip, Don and Toni also released a Northern Saw-whet Owl who had been injured in March when the tree he was roosting in was cut down.
In addition to the above mentioned volunteers, Dan, Claudia, Laurel and Vanessa have been going many extra miles to rescue birds in central and eastern Washington. Way to go awesome volunteers!
Two Electrocuted Raptors
A Red-tailed Hawk and a fledgling Western Screech Owl were admitted this past week with injuries consistent with electrocution. The hawk had burns on his right foot and had lost the use of his left foot. The tissue in the distal third of the owl’s left wing was dying.
Osprey Loses Fight
An adult Osprey appears to have been on the losing end of a fight with another raptor. The bird had multiple small puncture wounds all over its wings and chest and a deep, maggot infested wound on the front of its right shoulder. The maggots were removed by repeated flushings with peroxide and saline. Then, after consulting with Dr. Jeff Cooney, the wound was flushed with a dilute solution of ivermectin to kill any maggots that might still be hiding in the wound, followed by flushing with saline. Finally, the wound was packed with a saline soaked piece of gauze. The idea is that the necrotic material in the wound will adhere to the gauze. The gauze will be changed and the wound flushed every other day until only healthy tissue remains. This will no doubt be a prolonged process, but hopefully the outcome will be a releasable bird.
Another Baby Raptor With A Broken Wing
Of the 10 downy Great Horned Owls admitted to date, only one suffered serious injuries in his fall from the nest, the Eltopia Great Horned Owl, and he made a full recovery and was successfully fostered into a new family.
All four of the downy Red-tailed Hawks admitted to date have managed to break something when they fell from their nests. The latest is a nestling with a similar humerus fracture and shoulder injury to the Eltopia Owl. Hopefully the hawk’s wing will heal as well as the owl’s did.
