Pelican wing amputation

Today, we had a brown pelican patient come into the clinic. He had been found injured on the side of the road. He was in a large carrier and one by one we sneaked into the darkened room where we had housed him. Being slow and quiet around wild animals is absolutely critical to prevent stress. Upon examination, we could see a terrible fracture on the wing of this big bird. From his dull, brown feathers stuck a bone that had broken and punctured the skin. He was in obvious need of medical attention, so the veterinarian got him out and restrained him while he was put under anesthesia. The pelican anesthesia mask was a cleverly made one from a dryer tube, because of the length of the beak. 

The hurt guy went under fairly quickly and after assessing the break, it was clear that part of the wing needed to be removed. The end of the wing below the broken portion was cold, indicated severed blood vessels. The end of the wing was dying and could not be saved. The surgery was kind of bloody. There were many bone fragments embedded in dying tissue. Chunks of trashed muscle and skin had to be removed and after the lower portion of the wing was removed, the skin had to be sutured over the stump. We wrapped the stump, gave injectable antibiotics, and pain medication, and turned down the anesthesia gas to wake him up.

Unfortunately, what followed was something that happens too often in wildlife medicine. By the time wild animals come into a clinic, they have gotten to a stage of such severe injury or pain that some human can come pick them up and transport them. Wild animals by nature are afraid of humans, and when they've reached this stage of injury, chances of recovery get very low. They are already in a very stressed condition, and anesthesia is a stressful procedure. We kept monitoring heart rate and respiration of the pelican as he was waking up from the surgery, but his heart rate jumped up dramatically and his respiration stopped. At this point, many of the students had walked away from the surgery room, thinking the procedure had gone successfully and the arm looked good. I may have done the same myself if I wasn't taking records. The vet immediately gave emergency drugs to recover heart beat and respiration. We performed CPR on the bird, attempting to get his heart re-started, and we used the anesthesia machine (via intubation) to breathe for him. Several minutes of stressful attempts to revive him were not rewarded. The brown pelican did not wake up from anesthesia. This is a terribly sad situation, and it is all too common. There are some things to be thankful for, including the opportunity for us students to learn about amputations, for us to see the reality of wildlife medicine, and for the bird to be carried away from the earth in a peaceful anesthetic sleep. It still was not the ideal situation, but it was still worth trying. The veterinarian that we have here uses a three strike rule when it comes to wildlife. If they have three major injuries (including fractured bones), the chances of recovery are very small. Euthanasia is often the most humane decision in this situation. However, if there are less than three major injuries, then caring for the animal is always attempted. Respect for individual life is a beautiful trait.

After the pelican indicent, we practiced necropsies. A necrospy is an autopsy of a non-human animal. Animals that had passed away at rescue facilities or at the zoo or found in the wild, had been brought in for us to study. A necrospy can be considered a bit of a greusome process, cutting open a dead animal, but is so necessary in learning more about disease processes, why an animal died, and how to help other animals in the future. I necropsied a barn owl and found it to have hemorrhagic lungs and liver, indicating trauma. One thing that impressed me so much was the Doctor's use of the dead animals after necropsy. She buries the bodies behind the clinic and waits for them to decompose over several months. The earth gets back what the earth gave us to learn from. Only after all the parts have been decomposed and used by the environment will she dig up the bones and use them to study anatomy.

In fact, we did a bone lab just after necropsies. We got to get a box full of bones from a whole animal and put them together into a full skeleton. The animal my partner and I received was a coati. The coati had an incredibly bad break in his skull between the eyes. A whole square inch of bone was missing. Turns out the poor thing had been wacked with a machete and somehow still managed to survive for 6 days at the rehab center before passing away. Using the bones to study anatomy from an animal that was cared for and was attempted to save, who decomposed naturally, and who was not just raised to be killed for science was a beautiful thing. It made me appreciate how there is a right way to do things in science that shows true respect for nature and what she has given us.

That evening, we had a nice barbeque at a veterinarian's home and got to play with his two baby puppies. Afterwards, we went swimming here at the hotel, and it was a blissful evening.

The next day wasn't too interesting. We spent the morning listening to a lecture on parasitology. I myself love the subject, but it's probably not worth delving into on here. We spent the afternoon collecting and analyzing fecal samples. I've described the process on this blog before, but I'll recap for those of you who don't know. Basically, the first step of studying a fecal sample is stirring up the poop in a sugar solution. It gets all homogenized until it is not clumpy anymore, and then sugar solution is added to the tip top of the container. On top of the solution, a microscope slide is placed. The parasites will float to the top of the solution, because of the specific gravity of the solution, and they will stick to the glass of the slide. The slide can then be viewed under a microscope to see what bugs are living in an animal. 

In the afternoon, we watched some youtube videos of the wildlife clinic's inaguration and the cases which really started it. The clinic won a grant through a contest, because they submitted a video of a particular case with a baby spider monkey named Izzie. Izzie had been found crying under a tree and abandoned. Upon xray, it was seen that the had multiple breaks in the arm, tail, and hand. She also had five bullets under her skin where she had been shot. A surgeon from the US came down to perform her orthopedic surgery, in which a plate was inserted to set the arm bone. The money for surgery and his flight were donated from organizations. She was the most precious baby spider monkey, with huge brown eyes, and only weighed about a pound. She was the monkey that came on the first day the clinic opened. We also watched a video of the opening ceremony for the clinic. It was a beautiful moment where advocates met up and the veterinarian spoke. She and the minister cut a ribbon of vines and flowers to officially open the place for wildlife to come and be healed. Seeing the Doctor's dreams and wishes materialize before my eyes brought me to tears.