It’s been fairly quiet on the eastern front of the oiled bird response efforts in the Gulf. Currently, the Pensacola, Florida, facility gets a few birds in every day, but they are typically not oiled and instead are in need of rehab for other reasons. There are so many people looking for injured wildlife that they are, not surprisingly, finding them … birds not making the first year cut, birds tangled in fishing line, and other problems.
Friday night, Laurin was the last to leave the center when a call came in from a transport team. She waited for them and did intake on a heart-breaking case – a baby laughing gull with a wing nearly severed half-way down the humerus: an injury so old the wing tip was completely desiccated and just hanging by some leathery tendons. Who knows what caused the original injury? Possibly hitting a wire or tangling in fishing line, but all Laurin could do was to carefully cut off the remaining dried out wing and make him comfortable til the next day, as she does not have access to the euthanasia solution, a controlled substance.
Every oil spill brings nay-sayers asking whether it’s “worth it” to spend resources on these birds who may or may not make it once cleaned and released, or who may not become a member of the breeding population … typically the survivorship statistics are old and combine results of different kinds of spills (some fuels are more toxic than others), different species of birds (some are far more susceptible to stress than others), different response efforts (how long the birds stay oiled before capture and stabilization has a definite impact on survival). However, the emotional response to the human-created catastrophes require that we do something to mitigate the impact on these fellow inhabitants of the earth.
But what the press does not see and report are the everyday tragedies of human-impacted wildlife. The osprey hanging in fishing line, the gunshot eagle, the duck with an arrow through its wing, the thousands of animals struck on our highways every day, the deer hanging in barbed wire…. Wildlife rehabilitators are some of the most dedicated and emotionally courageous people I know.
Laurin says one adult gannet – who should not even be in the Gulf at this time of the year – was brought in but didn’t make it. A masked booby died. An osprey was going down for the third time when a boat captain scooped him up in a net – the bird had barely been able to keep his head above water. He was completely tangled in fishing line, but was at least otherwise very healthy. He nearly drowned, but the line itself did little damage and the bird was released once they were sure there was no respiratory damage from aspirating water.
There is definitely a problem, not oil-related, with the gannets. All the birds seen are immature birds and they have really poor feathering. The problem has been seen at centers further south in Florida who are not seeing oiled wildlife, so it seems to predate the spill. All the oiled bird response centers are reassessing their release policy for the gannets, some of whom were recently released but immediately beached themselves and were brought back in. The birds are molting now, and the new flight feathers coming in are gorgeous – but the old ones are in very poor shape and show more wear than would seem normal for one year … meaning perhaps that food was scarce last year when those feathers were developing. Feathers have a blood supply while they are forming and growing in, and any trauma, starvation, malnutrition, or stress that affects the body affects the feathers that are developing during that period, causing lines of weakness called, variously, stress marks, hunger traces, are feather checks. One gannet was scooped out of the water today by a rescue team – he’s not oiled, but he can’t fly because of poor feathering. They are talking about moving all the gannets into a long term care facility to undergo a molt – an expensive proposition but potentially critical for a population of birds that is so concentrated on their summer grounds, either in the Gulf for the youngsters or in Newfoundland for the breeding adults.
Because all the birds that come in are considered evidence, the facilities cannot necropsy anything on-site, which can be frustrating when you want to gain some idea of why a bird died. One gannet, however, came in badly torn up, with both puncture wounds and lacerations all over the lower part of his body – possibly a boat propeller? It was sad that he had suffered such grievous injuries, but once euthanized, Laurin could examine him and did indeed find special airsacs under the skin which they can inflate at will (see previous blog). One of her colleagues in Pensacola has corresponded with a rehabilitator in Newfoundland, where the majority of the North American breeding colonies are, for information as to why they might choose to inflate the air sacs in this particular situation – but there is no obvious answer. The birds are otherwise healthy. Laurin would have really liked to be able to investigate more thoroughly to find the mechanism that allows the apparent shunting of air to these subcutaneous air sacs at will. [Oddly enough, this badly injured gannet is the only one they’ve seen with decent feathers - perhaps he’d completed a molt early, perhaps he was from another area of the Gulf? Mysteries!]
Our emissary to the Gulf, though, is about ready to come home! She’s put in for a return flight for next week and hopes to be back by the 28th or so. Of course, the weather pundits are also predicting a change in the winds that might well bring a new rash of oiled birds to Pensacola as it would push the oil slick in their direction. So it’s a good thing the renovations at the facility are nearly complete.
The Florida panhandle weather remains hot, but somewhat overcast. The air looks sort of foggy, reports Laurin, but it’s really just the moisture in the air. Sunny with a chance of lightening, she says! She really enjoyed a wild lightening show a few nights ago – we just don’t get those amazing electric storms here in the Northwest. I keep forgetting to ask her if they have fireflies there … one of the joys of summers spent with my grandparents in Pennsylvania were the ‘lightening bugs.’
Louise Shimmel
