In winter, small patches of habitat such as those on the PAWS Campus are essential for wildlife survival. Take a look at a few of the species currently benefiting from this habitat here in the latest PAWS Campus Update.
As 2012 draws to a close, we want to extend a heartfelt thank you for your support.
Over the past year—with your help—we have transformed the lives of more than 6,000 injured, orphaned and abandoned animals. Together, we provided much-needed shelter, care and love for the cats, dogs and wildlife who arrived at our door, in need of a second chance.
Your year-end gift to PAWS will help animals like Clementine the kitten, who was rescued along with her brothers and sisters from an overcrowded shelter in Eastern Washington. At PAWS, Clementine and her siblings received the attention they needed to grow healthy and strong.
In 2012, PAWS rescued a record-breaking number of cats, dogs, kittens and puppies from overburdened shelters around the state, providing each of these animals warmth, love and a second chance at life. Your gift today will help us care for many more animals like these throughout the coming year.
Please, take a moment right now and make an end-of-the-year tax-deductible donation for the animals.
From all of us at PAWS, we wish you and yours a very happy, healthy and humane New Year!
Riveting rescue stories, a plethora of interesting patients, and hundreds of happy endings—2012 was a busy year here at PAWS. As we prepare to usher in 2013, we'd like to share with you a few memorable moments and milestones from the past year:
Whether we are celebrating a loving reunion between a lost pet and their guardian, the adoption of a long-time PAWS resident, or the animals who have yet to arrive at our doors, we are deeply grateful for your support. If you would like to help us continue our life-saving work, you can make a year-end tax-deductible donation for the animals at PAWS.
November 13, 2012 was the luckiest day of a young Double-crested Cormorant’s life, although it probably felt like just the opposite to him at the time. On that day the bird was sitting in a sewage tunnel next to the Duamish River. He was entangled in fish netting, and had been for several days. With no way to escape, the cormorant faced a slow death by starvation, but his fortunes were about to change.
The cormorant’s plight had not gone unnoticed, and therein lies the luck. Workers from Seattle Public Utilities just happened to be checking the sewage tunnel on that day. They spotted the cormorant and realized he was in distress. After calling PAWS Wildlife Center for advice, the workers entered the tunnel and rescued the bird.
At PAWS, wildlife rehabilitators cut the cormorant free from the netting. In addition to preventing him from feeding for several days, the fine monofilament had cut into the patagium (wing membrane) of the bird’s right wing. Patagial wounds can be problematic. The skin may contract or badly scar during healing, causing the bird to lose range of motion in the wing. So in addition to bringing the cormorant back from the brink of starvation, the veterinarians and animal care staff had to ensure that his wing wounds healed in a way that would not permanently impair his flight.
It took over a month, but the cormorant returned to a healthy body weight and his wing healed beautifully. He was maintained in a large, filtered pool while he re-grew feathers at the wound site.
On December 20, Wildlife Admissions Specialist Cindy Kirkendall, Assistant Wildlife Rehabilitator Jamie Thomas and a handful of Seattle Public Utilities employees gathered on Constellation Beach in Seattle to watch the Cormorant return home. After exiting his transport carrier, the Cormorant decided to forgo the water and take directly to the air. After making several passes over the group of well-wishers below, he headed off to resume his wild, free life.
For the second year in a row, Washington State is playing host to a remarkable group of visitors from the North. A number of Snowy Owls have once again made the trek down from the arctic to winter along our coast. We began receiving calls about sightings of the birds in early November, and we assumed it was only a matter of time before one arrived at the PAWS Wildlife Center for care. On December 11, that assumption proved to be correct as a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife enforcement agent brought us an injured Snowy Owl that was found in Monroe, WA.
The owl had been rescued at a Monroe area wetland by a group of duck hunters. The men had been seeing the owl for several days, and she seemed to be having difficulty with one of her wings. When the owl became weak enough to approach, they captured her and handed her off to the WDFW agent who brought her to PAWS.
Some swelling is present in the owl’s left wing, but no fractures were evident on her X-rays. She is very thin and weak. For now, she has been prescribed cage rest while her injured wing heals, and she is also being treated for intestinal parasites.
When I first saw patient #12-2776, I said to Wildlife Rehabilitation Manager Emily Meredith, “That is one big Cooper’s Hawk!” A short time later, when I was repeating this observation to our veterinary staff, I joked that the bird was a Cooper’s Hawk pretending to be a goshawk. As soon as I said it, a little voice in the back of my mind said, “I think you might have that backwards.”
I immediately returned to the bird’s enclosure and looked at him with fresh eyes, and in that moment I finally truly saw him. He wasn’t a big Cooper’s Hawk, he was a small Northern Goshawk, a species that is a State Candidate for being listed as threatened or endangered, and an extremely rare patient at PAWS.
In my 17 years of working at the PAWS Wildlife Center, I can only recall treating one other goshawk, and that was over 15 years ago. Adults of this species are easily identified by their striking gray and white color pattern, bold facial markings, and red eyes. Patient #12-2776 was a juvenile bird. At first glance, his brown, mottled appearance is not that different from the juveniles of a number of other species, the most similar being the Cooper’s Hawk. Still, his white eye stripe, uneven tail bands, and overall size left no doubt about his identity, just as his bedraggled feathers, thin body condition, and severe anemia left no doubt that he needed help.
The goshawk was in our care from November 4 through December 10. During that time he fully recovered from his anemia and his weight steadily climbed from 593 grams at admission to more than 800 grams right before his release.
I have seen goshawks in the wild many times, but always in remote forested areas in the foothills or mountains. Oddly, this goshawk came to us from Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, not a place you would ordinarily expect this woodland bird to be found. Migrating birds do sometimes wander into unexpected places though, and, like this bird, they often run into trouble when they do. After consulting with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) biologists, I decided to release the bird in an area that contained more promising habitat for a goshawk.
Before sunrise on December 11, I donned a headlamp and entered the goshawk’s flight enclosure. Goshawks are amazingly agile in flight, but the darkness gave me an advantage and I quickly captured the bird. I placed him in a padded transport carrier to ensure he didn’t injure himself in transit, and then I headed an hour north to meet a WDFW raptor biologist in Burlington, WA. The biologist placed a federal band on the bird’s leg, and then we released him in a forested area not far from the Skagit River. The goshawk landed on a nearby stump and paused just long enough for me to capture a few photos before he dove into the forest and was gone.
What are all the crows going on about this time? Click below to download the latest Campus Update and find out.
We have a day for giving thanks. We have two for getting great shopping deals. Wouldn’t it be great to have a day for giving back?
#GivingTuesday is a nation-wide day of charitable giving and volunteerism, and a chance for you to make a gift that will save lives.
Join us today, Giving Tuesday, and help find homes for abandoned cats and dogs, save the lives of injured and orphaned wildlife, and give all animals a fighting chance. With your kindness, we’ll continue to make a positive impact on the homeless animals in our community.
To share your compassion, simply make a #GivingTuesday gift to PAWS.
Here are a few other great ways to help animals this Giving Tuesday:
1. Make wishes come true. PAWS has a Wish List of items we need for the animals, such as chew toys, jars of peanut butter, and other supplies. Donate an item from our list!
2. Donate your time. If you can't adopt a pet right now, become a volunteer! Whether it's walking dogs, playing with kitties, or caring for wildlife, an extra pair of hands is always needed.
3. Donate linens. Towels, sheets and blankets can be used as comfy bedding for cats and dogs.
4. Foster an animal. Through foster care, you can provide young, injured or sick animals a chance to grow and heal before we find them a forever home. Open your heart and home to an animal in need!
The Western Pond Turtle was once the only species of turtle found in the Puget Sound lowlands, but there’s a good chance that you’ve never seen one. Once common throughout the region, by the early 1990’s there were only about 150 Western Pond Turtles left in Washington State. Their decline was fueled by habitat degradation and loss, as well as predation by introduced Bullfrogs and other species. In 1993 they were listed as a State Endangered Species. When the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) contacted PAWS to see if we could provide care to a sick Western Pond Turtle, we were happy to lend a hand.
Since 1991, the Woodland Park Zoo and the WDFW have been collaborating on a joint project called the Western Pond Turtle Recovery Project. Hatchling turtles are collected from the wild in the fall and taken to the zoo where they are fed and kept warm through the winter. When they are large enough that they will not fall prey to birds or bullfrogs, they are released back to the wild. In addition, turtles at the release sites are closely monitored to ensure they are doing well. The female turtle that was brought to us for care had developed a condition known as “shell rot”, in which the tissues of the shell are infected with bacteria, fungus or another agent. The infection breaks down the shell causing soft spots and visible pitting.
Every day PAWS's Wildlife Rehabilitators clean and treat the Turtle's shell. She looks a bit rough right now, but her wounds have visibly improved since she was admitted.
Turtles don't do anything quickly, and that includes healing. It will take several months of dilligent care for us to heal this Western Pond Turtle, but slowly and steadily she is winning this race.
As transformations go, this one was significant. I had first seen her in August. At that time she was a 17-pound, emaciated pup that was succumbing to lung parasite-induced pneumonia. Now, just 13 weeks later, there was fifty more pounds of Harbor Seal looking out at me from the transport carrier than had arrived at PAWS Wildlife Center. As the boat we were in rocked gently on the waves, she pressed against the door to sniff the salt air.
Arriving at the release site near the mouth of the Snohomish River, we cut the engines and moved the release carrier into position. When the door was opened, the seal oozed her well-fattened body out onto the swimming platform below.
Now right at the water’s edge, she paused to assess her surroundings. She looked out over the open water, and occasionally glanced back in our direction as if she needed some definitive sign from us that this was really happening.
All doubt was removed as she slid forward and dove headfirst into the cold waters of Puget Sound.
We stayed for awhile and watched her explore, now just spectators rather than active participants in her life.
We expected no thanks, but it was nonetheless given. It didn't come in the form of an excited seal bark or the wave of a flipper. No, the "thank you" was far more meaningful than that. It came from seeing this fat, healthy seal disappear beneath the waves to embrace the life she was born to live. Her acceptance of that gift was all the thanks we required.
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