Wildlife Rescue at the Arboretum | Partners in Wildlife Protection contributed by Steve Gross
For many years, PAWS wildlife clinic has partnered with the Arboretum to rehabilitate injured wildlife. In late September, Arboretum Education Program Assistant Lisa Sanphillippo and Saplings School Program Guide Cassie Benz encountered birdwatcher Steve Gross as they lead a group of kindergarteners on a Wetland Ecology Walk. Steve had one arm wrapped around a great blue heron and the other hand on its enormous beak! This is Steve Gross’s story:
September 28, 2007, was a nice fall day, and I was enjoying my retirement with a bird watching trip in the Arboretum. I parked in the Museum of History and Industry lot and walked the marsh trail to Foster Island, then south to the Graham Visitors Center. On my return, I stopped to rest on the bench at the north end of Foster Island. The bird watching had been wonderful and I was feeling fortunate to be there when my day took a strange twist. A woman and young boy approached me. “Excuse me,” the woman said, eyeing my binoculars. “Do you know anything about birds? I think there is a sick bird over there.” “I am a birdwatcher,” I said. “I know a little about birds. Show me where it is.” She led me east along the shoreline and pointed. “There it is.” What I saw was the sorriest looking Great Blue Heron I had ever laid eyes on. It was hunched over a rock; on closer approach, I saw it was in deep trouble. It was all fluffed up, and its feathers were frazzled into the mother of all bad hair days. A large treble hook was buried in the ball of its foot, and clear mono-filament fishing line led from the hook up to its neck. The leader wound around its neck and pulled its head down even with its breast until its long, graceful neck bent over like the hunchback of Notre Dame. A wound gaped where the leader bit deeply into its neck. To add insult to injury, a two ounce lead weight hung from the fishing line midway between its foot and neck, whacking the poor bird in the leg every time it moved. I knew the great blue heron was on the State Monitor Species list ,and I resolved to do what I could to help this one. “I can try to catch the bird and get it to a wildlife clinic,” I told the woman. “If that fails, we can notify the wildlife people and they can bring proper equipment to catch it.” The heron was very weak, and I managed to capture it without much difficulty. The little boy, who had watched all of this with deep concern, came and patted the Heron on the back. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “This man is going to take you to the doctor“. I was not quite sure how to accomplish that. The woman helped to cut away the fishing line and lead weight and to remove the hook from its foot, but the bird needed professional help for its neck wound. So, there I stood wondering what to do next with the heron clutched beneath one arm, one hand around its feet and the other around its formidable spear of a beak. I needed a box to put the bird in for transport and the address of the nearest wildlife clinic. The arboretum folks were the closest help, so I thanked the woman and little boy before returning to the Graham Visitors Center. I could tell by the looks on their faces that visitors at the center were unprepared for the arrival of a gray-bearded old geezer, sweat dripping down his forehead after the long walk from Foster Island, clutching a great blue heron under one arm and smelling like a long-dead fish. On the other hand, GVC staff acted as if such a spectacle was an everyday occurrence. After several phone calls, they located the PAWS wildlife clinic in Lynnwood and held the phone to my ear as I received instructions and driving directions. Arboretum staff found a heron-sized box for me, removed the foam packing bits, and helped tie a sack around the heron’s head and beak. The PAWS folks said this would help calm the bird by making it think it was nighttime. Then, the staff helped me stuff the bird into the box and sent me on my way trailing a stream of foam popcorn packing bits! All in a day’s work for the helpful Arboretum team. Box in tow, I trekked back to the museum parking lot and drove to Lynwood, where I delivered the heron into the capable hands of the professional staff at PAWS. They nursed it back to health (I was told later that the fishing line had cut clear into its windpipe) and returned it to the Arboretum on October 11. Come take a walk around Duck Bay and Foster Island and maybe you’ll see him happily fishing and flying free! Thank you, Arboretum folks. Thank you, PAWS. |
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