Bid Sanctuary and a Puma case

We started the day with conversation. It ended up being a review of zoos and of animals’ recognition of our job to help them. The veterinarian told us an amazing story about a stray dog who came to her clinic and needed treatment. She knew that one treatment on the dog would not heal him, and she earnestly hoped he would come back by her clinic the next day. Without fail, the dog returned to be helped three days in a row. The next day, the dog did not return, and she saw him a few weeks later on the streets, all healed. Sometimes it does seem that animals do know what we are trying to do.

Our conversation about zoos was enlightening and important. We discussed the historical prevalence of zoos, even of the human kind, and came to the conclusion that zoos will probably never be fully eradicated, so our energies should not be directed to making all animals wild and free, but to improving the captive situations that animals are under. We discussed the indications of good zoos, including enrichment, healthy animals, adequate staff, good enclosures, and regular preventative healthcare.

A darling little puppy next came into the clinic to get some vaccinations. The little chihuahua/pekinese mix was so sweet! I was allowed to give him his shot under the skin between his shoulder blades. He squeaked uncomfortably when I inserted the needle, poor thing. We all very much enjoyed having him around the clinic and getting to love on him in the morning. Baby animals are just the best! 

Next we had a patient. Umberto, from the Green Iguana Project (who helped us bathe iggies the other day and kept calling everything ‘little’) brought back in the iguana with the hurt leg from last week. It was time for a re-check. The wound had begun to heal, but he was still quite swollen. Thankfully, it wasn’t draining, and he had apparently been more active during the week. We repeated antibiotic injections, cleaned the wound again, and got aggressively tail whipped as we messed with the wound. I was the restrainer for that little guy and got a few good smacks. He’ll continue to be monitored and the leg should heal fine if all goes as hoped.

Belize bird rescue was the next trip on our agenda. We drove for about half an hour, part of which was on an incredibly rocky road. I was sitting in the back of the 15-passenger van and kept bopping my head on the ceiling as we bumped along. We drove through a large, black iron gate onto a property where the ‘bird lady’ lives. We went into her garage and checked on a barn owl that someone had brought in. The beautiful bird showed all the right signs of being healthy—beak clacking towards us, wings raised in a threatening manner, fear. We stepped out of her room and began to talk in the garage about our plans for the day, when all of a sudden, a green parrot flew right into the garage, startling us all and landing on Nikki’s (the bird lady) shoulder. It turns out he was her pet parrot that could not be rehabilitated into the wild because he is too habituated to humans. She does not condone keeping parrots as pets, but this is one of the special situations where the bird is already a pet and cannot go back into the wild safely. She kept him in great conditions, though, and allowed him to fly around her property and come in for night and when he wanted.

We were shown her release cages for ‘soft release.’ There are stages of rehabilitating a bird into the wild, and in each stage the bird is contacted less and less. After being in an enclosure for some time with human interaction, they are put into a large flight cage where humans feed them, but do not talk or interact with them. After some time, the birds are allowed access to the wild, but still have access to the flight cage and human food. Food is given less and less frequently until the birds find their own sources and have regained their fear of humans.

We helped Nikki do checkups and de-wormed some of her other parrots that would eventually be released. I got to yet again enjoy the joy of restraining snappy birds. They were all healthy, thankfully! We also introduced an aracari toucan who had healed from a wing injury to the other two toucans on the property. Introduction of new animals is usually done in a very slow process where the animals are allowed to interact through a barrier of some sort (cage, etc). After they have gotten used to each other’s smells and vocalizations, they can be fully released to physically interact with one another. Because of the dangers of animals being rejected from a group, and the ability to actually be in an enclosure with birds, several people went in with towels in case an intervention was needed. The birds did beat up on the new toucan just a little bit, but it was not too bad, no injuries were sustained, and we were able to get him back out of the enclosure for further monitoring and a more definitive release later.

We also got to practice blood draws on ducks and chickens at the bird sanctuary. We walked across the pasture to the bird yard, and then the rain started to pour. We still had to catch the birds to get them in the barn for blood draw, so we all took a little shower as we corralled ducks and chickens. The rain and mud covered our bodies, and as I lunged over a duck to restrain him. While keeping down the strong wings under my arm and holding a fiesty, flying head with my hand, I got quite pooped on. It was a gloriously dirty day. I love feeling like you are truly working, and getting dirty is usually always a good sign that you are! We drew blood from a large leg vein after cleaning the area and holding off the blood flow. It was a great experience to practice taking blood from a bird for analysis. 

 The bird sanctuary was a fabulous experience.

After the bird sanctuary, we went to check on a mountain lion named Nala. She was being kept as a private pet, which always comes with its own problems. Turns out this cat was kept housed with her brother for many years, and was even allowed to breed with him and had kittens, which were sold. The lady who had him at her house was not the owner, but simply a caretaker of the cat, and she was the one who called the vet to take care of them. The brother had died a few weeks ago of cancer, and Nala had been quite lethargic since his passing. She was also having medical issues of her own. We got to the property, trudged through a muddy pasture to the back of the house, and waited patiently for Nala to come out of her stone house. Once she was finally persuaded out of there, she lay down, and we were able to see the painful-looking lesions on her abdomen. The wounds were only the external appearance of the tumors beneath. The veterinarian expects that they are mammary tumors, probably cancerous, but with the cat being very old and the surgery being very expensive, and the owners being very resistant, the only thing we could do was to give pain medications for a while and hope she isn’t hurting too much.

After Nala, we went back to the clinic and made use of a kiskadee bird we had found dead outside at the resort. He had probably hit a window, because no wounds were seen. We used him as a ‘test patient’ of sorts to practice bone pinning and intraosseous (IO) catheters, which is a catheter placed in the bone marrow when an IV catheter is hard to place, like in reptiles. It was really great to be able to use the gift nature had given us of that bird so we could learn something that truly can only be learned by hands-on practice, so that we may later help other live animals.