by Julie Hauserman
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The injured brant was rehabbed at the Cape Wildlife Center.© The HSUS/Heather Fone |
The little water bird wasn’t necessarily the kind of Christmas gift Robbie Fearn had in mind, but for the director of The Fund for Animals' Cape Wildlife Center in Massachusetts, it wasn’t unexpected.
The bird who came into the direct care center the day after last Christmas was a brant—a small goose from Canada. This one, less than a year old, was in rough shape. She’d been shot.
Stranger to the Rescue
A passerby in Westport, Massachusetts had found her near a pond, bleeding but still alive, and brought her to the center. An examination showed that the bird’s leg was broken.
“We strapped her leg against her body in a sling,” Fearn said. “She had to be tube-fed three times a day for five days until she began to eat on her own.”
Gradually, the brant’s leg healed, and she was able to swim in the center’s indoor tub to get her strength back. But after being so long away from wild waters, the bird had lost the waterproofing on her feathers. So workers had to go through a painstaking process—the same used to clean birds after an oil spill—to get her feathers waterproofed again.
“You have to wash them in in a series of water and detergent baths until they are completely clean,” Fearn said.
“You have to use water that’s exactly 104 degrees with perfect pressure," he continued. "Then you put them under a heat lamp. They start preening. They use their beaks to rezip their feathers together and release the oils they need to waterproof themselves.”
On Her Way
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The little bird joined a flock of overwintering brants.© The HSUS/Fone |
In this story of love and caring, it is fitting that the little brant took her leave the day before Valentine’s Day. Clinic staff and volunteers took her to Plymouth Harbor, where a flock of overwintering brants had been spotted.
“She flew a little ways away from us,” Fearn said. “She started talking, she swam out to the group of about 50 brants, and joined the group and they accepted her.
"She is a feisty little girl who went through a traumatic experience. We’re so glad we were able to help.”
The Cape Wildlife Center operates year-round, providing professional care to nearly 2,000 injured, ill, and orphaned wild animals every year. It is one of four direct animal care centers operated by The Fund for Animals, an affiliate of The Humane Society of the United States.
