WELL SHU IS HAPPY.......

Hello everyone,
It sure is cold here today. Nice and sunny, but windy and cold.
Tomorrow, some people are coming down from Salt Lake to help around the place with projects that need to be worked on. I hope the weather cooperates for them.
We took Shu to the vets office to see if he could possibly get his pins removed from his wing. It's 4 weeks earlier then the vet initially said he wanted them removed, but there are other considerations at this point that need to be addressed.
Shu is very aggressive and having to catch him every other day to clean the mew is getting dangerous. He's very large and has an attitude to match. He managed to grab Connie's face the other day with his beak. Thank goodness it wasn't any worse than it was.
The vet took an x-ray and decided they could be removed, so we're happy about that.
We moved him into the 8x8 mew. Now he can walk around and open his wings. The perches vary in the mew from a couple of feet to about 6+ feet. He has been on the taller perches as well, so this is good. There is a lot of calcification around the injury on that wing, but he has good movement at this point. Time will tell if he'll go back to the wild or not.

Ivy will be the next one to have pins removed. That's still a couple of weeks out, however.
I've still been calling the Zuni people to get Glory's situation resolved. I really need that flight for Shu. About the time Ivy get's her surgery, Shu will be ready to go into the flight to show us what he can do.

The pictures I've attached today have nothing to do with our current patients, but they were here in the past, needing our help, so I thought I'd share them with you. Next post I hope to have some pic's of Shu in his new digs!
Debbie

Update on the Moab eagle................

Hello All,
Well the female golden from the Potash road area near Moab was banded on the 6th of this month. We kept her on a round of antibiotics for 10 days. She continued to gorge herself every time she ate. This was a huge concern. If this has been her habit for sometime now, I can't believe she's not be in trouble before now. Maybe this is a new learned behavior due to a prey shortage or other inability to eat as often as she had in previous times. Hard to say and she's not saying much!
After talking with another rehabilitator, she agreed letting her go was what she would do as well. However, if she comes in again with the same problem, she won't go back to the wild.
I hope for her sake, she does well.
We released her last Wednesday, the 11th at the Dead Horse State Park area near Moab. How beautiful it was. I've never been there, even though I've driven past the turnoff area many times, I just never took the time, not realizing how close it was.
We had a medicine man, Jeff Gardner, give the eagle a blessing as she left. TJ Robertson, with the Division of Wildlife Resources, did the release. He's the officer that brought her to us. To the right is Connie, doing what she does best, handling the big kids.
We're still needing some people to help with fundraising. Everything we do takes money and ususall lots of it, so if anyone reading the posts has some talents, ideas, time, please let me know. I really need someone good on the computer (how to do things).
I'll get the pics posted now. I'll have some other pictures to post in a couple of days. I'm having difficulties getting them transferred to yahoo.
Debbie

A snowy update..........

What a wet, cold slushy day. The ducks are the only 'happy' critters on the property!
Well, Shu, the bald eagle, is still doing well. Just as ornery as ever.
Ivy, the female golden eagle, is also doing well, though I'd like to see her a bit more feisty. We had to wrap her wing again today as it was drooping a little.
Walter, the turkey vulture is doing well. He's definitely more interested in the pieces of rabbits that the eagles have left behind than the fresh pieces of red deer meat or elk meat he used to love. Typical turkey vulture!
Fremont, the eagle hit by a coal truck is getting stronger every day. He took a bad turn for a few days. No energy, very listless. We starting his antibiotics again and added a second one as well. We also started his pain med's again and added a second one of those also. We started giving him some good gut flora, such as lactobacillis and acidophillis. This will help with all of the antibiotics he is getting. He also had some heat at his surgery site so another reason for all of the antibiotics.
I've included some pic's of the wing area we're concerned with.

The newest eagle, the female from the Moab area, is doing very well. We had her banded last week, anticipating a release here in the next few days. We're just waiting for the weather to cooperate. We plan on releasing her at an area called 'Dead Horse Point' near Moab.
We put her in the flight pen today. There, she can exercise her wings and move about freely.
She's in there with Glory. They seem to be tolerating each other.

I'll be glad when the weather changes. We have a lot of cleaning to do that we're unable to do during the cold winter months. Hopefully, we can get some volunteers this year to help out with that and some improvements I'd like to make. Right now, I'm just focused on feeding everyone and stressing about funds to care for this years patients. One of our local sources that I've used 3-4 times told me today that they can no longer donate meat to the wildlife as their store policy has changed and it will now be going to the local food bank. Once again, the wildlife loses out to people. When the two come head to head over an issue, the animals lose almost 100% of the time. This applies to those working in domestic rescues as well. I see it all too often!

Our next meeting with the Division of Wildlife Resources in Salt Lake will be in March. We'll have a lot to discuss as the Ogden Nature Center has decided to end the wildlife rehabilitation program they have there. This facility was taking care of the load out of Salt Lake since Tracey Aviary chose not to renew their wildlife rehabilitation permit due to AZA accreditation conflicts.
This is horrible news for the wildlife in the most populated areas of Utah.
The state is so large, that the public, for the most part, isn't willing to drive long distances with their wildlife problems, so that means that they most likely will attempt to care for their 'animals' on their own, with no education, background, knowledge or permits.
We wildlife rehabilitators know all too well what this means and it isn't good.

Well, I'll close for now and hopefully we'll have some great pictures later this week of a release.
Debbie

MORE PATIENTS.........................

Time for a quick update.
The new eagle I mentioned on the last post, hit by a coal truck in the area, is doing well. We named him Fremont. He's an immature male Golden. I guess the actual impact was just horrid. It was a double-trailer semi truck that hit him. He had surgery the day after we came into possession. These are his pictures with the post. Hopefully he can be released, but the chances are slim. There were many broken bones involved.
We did get another Golden eagle in a few days ago. She came from the Moab, Utah area. There doesn't appear to be any trauma. Her crop was HUGE and her breath was horrible. It appears that her crop was impacted and the contents started to rot, then she became systemic. We started her on antibiotics and started hydrating her. I massaged her crop and could feel the contents. I could feed bones and god knows what. We just kept hydrating her and massaging her crop and it finally started moving. She finally emptied it out. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We started giving her a little meat today, no fur or bones. Her crop is stretched out, but it should get back to it's original size pretty soon. We're going to keep her long enough to give her a good run of antibiotics and then she'll be going home.
We're feeding 5 eagles now and a turkey vulture. My help in Moab, Dave, is feeding two hawks, and Spring is on it's way! The last 3 photo's attached are of the Moab eagle with the crop problem.