It’s all hands on deck at California’s WildCare Wildlife Hospital and Rehabilitation Center this baby season, with volunteers working around the clock as lingering winter storms and spring yard cleaning disrupt nests.
“So the weather was really tough on us,” explained Animal Care Director Melanie Piazza.
“When weather events happen, our patient volume may double or triple, so you have windy days or storms, and squirrel nests that may not be the best built, and the wind blows them over, and all the babies are All fell down.
“It’s the same thing with birds, you know, whether it’s a windy day or a rainy day. The babies in the nest get blown out of the trees. That’s typical.
WildCare suspects late-season storm caused early-season baby deaths
A series of atmospheric river storms have had a huge impact on wildlife this spring, with baby season set to begin later in the year.
Between March and August, WildCare sees 60-70% of its 3,500 patients annually.
Last Thursday, at the beginning of the birthing season, the hospital admitted 34 patients, 15 of whom were starlings in the same nest.
In December, staff may see one intake or no intake per day.
Piazza said she saw an increase in patient numbers during the storm, but it wasn’t until last week that there was an influx of babies.
“Especially last year, we had huge storms over and over again. The start of our baby season was delayed by almost a month,” said Piazza, who is seeing the same phenomenon this year.
“So our theory is that a lot of babies died. If their nest failed, they failed. And because the weather was so bad for so many days, people weren’t out looking for them.
About 80% of patients are brought in by the public.
WildCare is one of the few rescues for non-native animals.
Great horned owl returns to roost
She and a team had just relocated a group of three great horned owls, victims of a late-season mid-April tropical-storm-force storm.
The video above shows one of the youngsters, eventually nicknamed “Sky Tiger” for his hunting prowess, getting a little help from Piazza.
She is hand-feeding it chunks of rat to make the bird strong and able to survive its return to the wild.
Great horned owls don’t build their own nests, but move into abandoned nests of other animals, she said.
“Because they’re old and abandoned, a lot of times they’re not very structurally sound. So what happened with these babies is we had a storm and the nest was already in bad shape and half of it collapsed,” she said.
“So the two babies fell out.”
A baby died after falling 40 feet.
But she mobilized the Birds of Prey reunion squad for others.
First, she stabilized the birds and made sure they were not injured.
She then sent a rescuer up the tree to retrieve a baby that hadn’t fallen from its nest before high winds and freezing rain hit.
Four or five days later, it is the parents’ turn to raise their children again.
“We have a team of volunteers that go out and look for where the eaglet and owl were found, look for the nest and see if her parents are still there,” Piazza said.
“Then, if we can find it, we talk to our arborists and our volunteer arborists will go out and set up a rope system and climb up and bring the baby back to the nest.”
These nests need to be replaced.
The series of photos below show the team’s huge efforts to reunite families.
The photo is of an owl and two owls reunited.
“Then we lifted the babies up and put them in new baskets, and mom and dad were yelling and dive-bombing him (the arborist) the whole time,” Piazza said.
“This is certainly a thankless job. So our scout volunteers returned the past two nights and documented mom and dad still observing the nest in their new baskets.
Parents are the best at raising children
She explains that it’s often a wife’s story about parents rejecting their children because they smell like humans. It is extremely rare for a parent to abandon a nest or healthy young.
“We’re good at what we do,” she said, but mom and dad are the best.
Therefore, every animal that comes in is rehabilitated with minimal human interaction so that it can be raised and trained by its own wild parents.
Babies who are orphaned or injured and need more time in the hospital actually learn life skills from staff and volunteers.
They go to great lengths to ensure that the animals don’t get used to humans.
“Like, when we raise a baby bobcat, these guys can adapt very easily. Obviously, if you have a bobcat that gets along well with people, we’re going to fail. You can’t release them because you don’t want them to be around transmitted to humans in the wild,” Piazza continued.
“So we wear ghillie (camouflage) suits and hide ourselves. We actually have to cover ourselves, which is really not fun, but with the straws they use to pee, you rub it on the ghillie suit so you smell Like a bobcat instead of a human.
No one names or hugs the animals, and no one talks to them.
Staff and volunteers hide behind a taxidermied spotted owl as they feed the owls.
When the time comes, they send the owls to the “rat school,” an aviary where staff release live rats so the owls can learn to hunt.
“So we enable them to learn how to fly and find their own food. Then, once they are able to do that and feed themselves and develop the skills they need to survive, they are released back into the wild,” she said.
“This takes weeks or months, depending on the species.”
Fifteen starlings just starting their egg-laying season need to learn how to hunt insects from their aviaries after their nests were destroyed.
Crews clearing trees to fight wildfires removed sections of tree trunks that concealed nests.
In her 22 years at WildCare, she has seen about 200 different animals, from rattlesnakes to songbirds and waterfowl to mountain lions.
“What we are doing is righting the wrongs that have been done to these wild animals. We are trying to give them a second chance in the wild,” she said.
“So whether it’s a pigeon or a (rare) spotted owl, we do the same amount of work or medical care that those patients need, provide the same level of care, because it’s the right thing to do.”
She offers some advice for anyone who finds an animal in danger, injured or apparently without a parent.
“If you can get close and touch a wild animal, pick up a wild animal, something might be wrong,” she said, noting that most wild animals avoid humans.
“So you should contact a wildlife rehabilitator.”
Place them in a warm, dark, quiet place such as a cattery, closet, or bathroom, and don’t feed them.
Eating the wrong food at the wrong time can kill an injured animal.
Take a photo and send a text message to your nearest wildlife center and let a licensed professional advise whether the animal should be returned or brought in.
For example, Piazza said she sees many “kidnapped” deer every year.
During the day, when the fawn is feeding, the parents will hide the fawn and return a few hours later.
At that time, a well-meaning person thought the deer was an orphan.
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Image Source : nypost.com