A happy wildlife story (*warning, slightly graphic picture but happy ending*)

[EileenH]

As most of you know, I work in a wildlife hospital.

About a month ago, someone came into our hospital about an injured osprey in their yard with a fishing lure stuck in his wing. Since they lived right by our hospital,one of my staffand I hopped on the bandwagon and checked it out. Sure enough, we saw an osprey, about 10 feet in the water on a stump, with a lure sticking out of his wing.
Unfortunately, he spotted us looking at him and unbelievably flew about 500 feet away.
We really didn't think we'd get him, but we located where he went. Right in the middle of a marsh, we waded through the mud (me freaking out that I would get bitten by a snake...) we finally got him.

On admission, this is what we found:

This is one my clinic assistant, Michelle, quickly working to remove the fishing line & lure fromhis wing. (she's heading off to Cornell Vet School next week, I am proud to say..). By some miracle, the lure did not hook him, but the fishing line already did enough damage:

We've been working with this bird for about 3 weeks, and with a bird like this, every day you hold your breath. They are not good patients in captivity, as they don't eat on their own so they have to be force fed; they have to go on prophylatic medicine to prevent fungal infections. They are hard.
But I am so happy to say, that this week, this is what we got to do:

And here he is, flying over the Long Island sound off into the sunset. Bye, osprey!:

Enjoy; it was one of those moments I'll always remember so I thought I would share it with you guys.

 

[Bo B Bunny]

Ok..... I'm pmsing.... hormonal..... and I am crying! Happy Tears! Wonderful!

 

[naturestee]

That's so awesome! What a great success! I love ospreys but they're really rare in WI. I got a good look at one this weekend though. I was river rafting and he circled our raft and then sat in a tree and screamed at us.

 

[missyscove]

That is a great story!

And congratulations to Michelle on Cornell, that's quite an achievement. I'm going to be an undergraduate Animal Science student there next month and I dream of going to their vet school, but we'll see what happens four years from now.

 

[EileenH]

Thanks, guys. Yes, I'm pretty proud of Michelle. I've known her since she was 15 (knew her from Goosemoose forum before I knew her at my hospital).If anyone from here is onGoosemoose,she is Bluemoon over there.She pretty much rocks. I still don't want to think about it much, because I'll miss her a lot. But, you have to let go, and I know she'll be back.

Once the summer is over, I'll post some more pix. It's really busy right now, but this one warranted me taking the time to share. Glad you liked it. Ospreys are so cool, and they have this amazing smell. It doesn't make sense in words, but the words powdery fish come to mind when I think of what it smells like.Most of my staff don't like it , but I do, so I always volunteer to be the "holder" when he was being treated - then I can smell like an osprey allday. Mmmm..

 

[seniorcats]

Wow! That's spectacular. Thanks so much for sharing the story and photos.

 

[Bo B Bunny]

You know, my daughter found out that the plastic pop holders, balloons and stuff like that can harm animals. She won't let anything like that get out of her site.... she will cut them up or something.

This is a great thing to see but it's sad that the bird was messed up due to human carelessness in the first place.

Maybe she can do a project on that for school or 4H next year..

 

[missyscove]

Bo B Bunny wrote:

You know, my daughter found out that the plastic pop holders, balloons and stuff like that can harm animals. She won't let anything like that get out of her site.... she will cut them up or something.

This is a great thing to see but it's sad that the bird was messed up due to human carelessness in the first place.

Maybe she can do a project on that for school or 4H next year..

We've always been told to cut up the soda 6 pack things.

When my high school class did a beach cleanup with heal they bay, they showed us some latex balloons that had gone up into the atmosphere, popped, and come back down.

They look just like jellyfish and other sea creatures will eat them.

Never release balloons into the sky.

 

[Becca]

Awwwh

 

[LuvaBun]

Wonderful achievement - well done to you all . Nice to have a happy ending!

Jan

 

[slavetoabunny]

Awesome pictures! It must be so gratifying to heal these magnificent birds and send them back to their "normal lives".

 

[cheryl]

You know it must be an awesome feeling to look after an injured animal...bringing it back to good health...and then setting it free...what a feeling that must be...i know if that was me...i would cry from happiness to seeing that animalfinally being able to gohome

 

[LadyBug]

great story!:great:

 

[Bo B Bunny]

I was telling my sister and Mom about this today.... They were so impressed, happy, and in a sense, jealous that you got to experience this bird's recovery and majesty!

 

[EileenH]

Thanks everybody - this is a really stressful time of the year for us; so many injured and kidnapped babies, trillions of calls a day...so when we have a success story like this, it really helps. I've looked at these pictures so much myself!

Right now, I'm heading off in a boat to put a fledgling osprey back into his nest! Perhaps pictures will be here later....