New Patient - Barred Owl in shock

Admitted an adult barred owl 2 days ago. Had gotten trapped in a barn in a confined space for several days. The owner of the property thought it was dead until he saw its head move. The bird was still in decent flesh but was badly dehydrated. We gave her IV fluids ( assuming a female because of higher body weight, females are larger than males in species of birds of prey) and put her in an incubator to bring her body temperature up. Within 12 hours she was looking better and we repeated her fluids. A few hours later we fed her a food slurry and then the next day, a small mouse. Happy to report that today she is quite bright and has eaten 2 mice! Pics to follow :)

Eagle Release

A good year for land protection in NS

http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1218256.html

Rat poison often kills wildlife

Please consider wildlife before using rat poisons. Any animal ( including your pets) can be secondarily poisoned by eating a rodent containing rat poison

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=super-toxic-rat-poision-kills-owls

Wildlife Solutions

Cool story but the answer here is not to relocate the owl, but to make a less flimsy chicken pen . If one owl discovered they are easy to get at, others will , so relocating this one won't work. Plus..it will likely just come back. They aren't stupid! :) Most issues where wildlife conflicts happen, is because we have done something to attract them and need to fix that.

http://blogs.wvgazette.com/johnmccoy/2010/12/08/chicken-killing-owl-freed-by-chickens-owner/

Oiled Wildlife Training

CWRC is at Point Tupper Marine Services ( oil handling facility), teaching a seminar on oiled wildlife rehabilitation. Oil spill preparedness is a main focus of our group.

Oiled Wildlife Preparedness

I spent the past few days at the REET meeting ( Regional Environmental Emergencies Team) in Charlottetown. We have special expertise in oiled wildlife rehabilitation and I spent those the days networking with govt and community team reps. Great opportunity to spread the word about preparedness for wildlife affected by oil spills. Several training sessions coming up too. The more people I can train to help deal with wildlife if we have a spill, the better!