Your mileage may vary (literally!)

Last weekend (as in, two days ago) we only got The Call* once. There was a common murre in need of a ride, in the Oceano Dunes State Park ranger's station's "bird shed."

Bird shed calls are easy for us. We go to the shed, collect conveniently packaged birds (already in carriers!) that were captured by the rangers, log out the bird(s), turn off the heat lamps, and drive them to Morro Bay (about 45 minutes each way.)

This little murre was miserable, bedraggled and shivering, covered in greenish poo from stem to stern. He** was not interested in us, only in his own presumably intestinal discomfort. The description on the log said "weak." He seemed weak.

We drove him to Morro and he seemed rather revived on the Morro end of the trip, a little more energetic, a little less shivery, and no longer pressing his eyes closed in rhythmic bouts of suffering. Good luck, murre.

The weekend before was a different story. We got The Call once on Saturday morning, and went to capture a tired, droop-winged juvenile Brown Pelican at Pismo Beach, just north of the pier. It was a masterful capture, if I do say so myself. We walked up and I spread my arms at the bird and said "look at me, I'm scary" to distract it, and Pat dropped a lap blanket on its head and picked it up with one smooth gesture. In so doing, he very much impressed the hunky fire department lifeguards who had come to protect the bird from curious tourists. That's always a nice feeling. Then we hustled the bird into a carrier at the Oceano Dunes ranger station, and took it to Morro, along with another, very aggressive pelican with a droopy wing, and a miserably injured seagull. We got another call just before the Center closed -- could we give a pelican a ride from the Dunes? After conferring with workers at the Center, who said they could do nothing more before they left than provide heat lamps, we decided to let the pelican rest under the heat lamps at the ranger station and would go first thing in the morning.

On Sunday, we took the pelican to the center. He hadn't had a net under his feet and was awash in poo, but he seemed all right. He had a droopy wing but pulled it up nicely when bothered. When we returned home, we sat down to eat breakfast and play video games, and got The Call again. This time, it was a bird (reported to be a seagull) tangled in fishing line on Pismo Beach, somewhere north of the pier. (It turned out to be about a mile or more north of the pier, actually.) We went to the pier and looked around, and didn't see the bird. We asked the hunky lifeguards if they had seen the bird. They communicated amongst the stations and told us yes, but way up the beach. So we got in the car and went up the beach, down some cliff stairs, and about a half mile of beach. No. No bird. When we returned to the car an hour after starting and called the Center, the phone "vol" told us that the hunky lifeguards had captured the fishing-line-entangled bird.

We called the lifeguards. They arranged to meet us at a parking lot with the graciously captured and boxed bird. It took probably 45 minutes to coordinate, but eventually we had an agonized pelican in the car (not a seagull at all). He had two fishhooks in his breast, and fishing line around parts of his wings and feet, drawn tight. He looked like a poor avian cenobite with huge, unhappy brown eyes. Pelicans have expressive, mobile, beautiful, movie-star eyes. They're wonderful birds, like soft, pillowy, feathered pterodactyls with (usually) mild manners and grave dignity.

I called the phone vol who had helped us coordinate to ask her to inform the center that it was a pelican on the way, and one badly entangled with hooks and line. She was glad to hear from us. Could we pick up a bat that "couldn't fly" at a private residence in Arroyo Grande "on the way?"

Oh, the bat. Poor little devil. The people who had called had evidently panicked because it hadn't left the eaves of their home before 10 a.m. (never mind that bats are nocturnal) and had taken a hose to it. They hosed it down from the eaves, all the way down their porch stairs, and 10 feet from the porch. Then they called us and asked us to come save it. The whole time we were there, Pat going to recover it because my cheap shoes had shredded in the beach sand of the pelican capture adventure, and I was heavily blistered and barefoot in the car, the man of the house seemed to want Pat to sympathize that he hated bats and found their guano objectionable, and was going to call an exterminator.

I am partially sympathetic. I wouldn't be happy about mammals that sometimes carry rabies on my porch, near my dogs & family. The man was new to the house and didn't know what to expect from the wildlife. And city folk who move to the country are quite typically this kind of menace, ignorant and hostile to animals that they are first encountering. (Q: "damn coyotes keep eating my cats!" A: "keep your cats inside." Q: "this bat hasn't flown off by 10 a.m., shouldn't the lazy bastard get moving?" A: "no, it is nocturnal and was up all night eating your West-Nile-Virus-carrying mosquitos.") But... once I had savaged a wild animal would I call a wildlife rescue organization and beg them to save it? And then talk exterminators when they arrived?

Eh. What. Ever.

A wet bat looks pitiful -- curls of golden-brown hair gathering damply and exposing mostly naked skin, lying facedown with wings splayed out like a dressed chicken on a cutting board. He also smelled horrible, like "skunkolyptus," seriously, a wet bat isn't for the faint of heart to sniff. But he was adorable (although shocky and chilled and terrified). At first he didn't move much except to open his toothy snout and look menacing, and pant. But by the time he'd enjoyed the heat of my leg and the sun through his shoebox all the way to Morro, he was scooting all around the inside of the shoebox, skreeking softly. (There was no way I was peeking, just in case I ended up turning him loose in the car whilst Pat was trying to drive. Besides, he'd been through enough stress.)

So some weekends are demanding, and others are simply rewarding. And of course, many weekends we never even receive The Call at all.
___________

*The Call only comes in when you are sleeping in/making love/planning a day trip somewhere/doing something complicated. Or when you've just gotten back from the aftermath of the last Call.

**I can't help it -- the English neuter male pronoun has me in its grip. Unless I can tell it's a she, I usually call it a he. All you politically correct neo-hippies can try to educate me, but I've got my habits.

Transporter's Survival Kit

We've been building our skills in capturing distressed wildlife (most of it, birds). Once you have it in hand, you want only to keep it calm and comfortable in a way that won't contribute to its injuries while you get it to qualified help.

All you will need is to
1) keep it confined in a safe, clean container (with non-terrycloth padding if possible, as it prevents sliding around, foot injuries, and chills);
2) keep it quiet (no radios or talking, even in soothing voices!);
3) keep it warm (but be sure it has an escape from being overheated, if you are using anything but your body heat.)

We've also been building a tool kit of the things we often find that we need. It doesn't have to be packaged prettily (or at all!) but you will want it all to be with you when you need it. Don't forget to put it in the car when you are on duty for captures -- or to keep it there, if you have room.

You MUST have:

• Gloves (two pairs: soft to keep little beaks and teeth off of you, and thick and protective in case you must wrangle something beakier or toothier)
• Something fabric* (a sheet, a towel, a lap blanket) to toss over birds like a "net" whilst catching, and to drape over carriers to soothe the animals
• Protective eyewear(safety glasses if you catch "stabby" birds like grebes)
• Cell phone with the wildlife center and other helpful numbers (such as the lifeguard station or ranger station) on speed dial - things change fast out there, and this really is a must.
• Cardboard boxes, large (think printer paper box) and small (think shoebox)
• Antibacterial hand wipes for after a capture
• Flashlight
• A pen and paper for recording who found the animal and where, and their number
• Cards or brochures for your wildlife center to give people
• Old clothes or sweat pants to wear -- trust me, EVERYTHING poops on you
• Sunscreen, but keep it OFF the animals -- always wear your gloves
• Bleach, at home, for making a solution with water to clean your tools/rags/carriers (don't ever expose birds to strong fumes, though. Heard of canaries in coal mines?)
  

You will WANT:

• A camera (although photo ops rarely present themselves)
• A medium-sized pet carrier
• Access to larger pet carriers if you carry larger wildlife
• Rags (not terrycloth*) to cushion the boxes and provide decent footing to clawed feet, and for warmth for baby animals
• Pliers, bolt-cutters, multi-tools, and/or pocket knives (to disentangle animals from fishing line or barbed wire -- if you are not sure, always leave it to the professionals)
• T-shirt reading "WILDLIFE RESCUER" so that whilst you are looking for the animal, people will offer help and directions spontaneously
• A big flexible magnet for your vehicle stating that you are a wildlife transporter for your wildlife center, and/or a laminated sign for your dashboard stating that you will be right back, but you are rescuing or releasing wildlife for the center; this may save you a parking ticket
• while we're at it, a container of change/dollars for parking meters etc.
• water for YOU to drink when you are hot and sweaty. Don't water the wildlife - leave that to the professionals.
• a passenger to hold shoebox-sized rescuees, for the body heat, if available
• to see the doctor if you are injured by an animal or infested/bitten by its parasites (fleas, mites, etc.) and there is potential for zoonotic disease. The wildlife center staff should be able to give you a good idea of what to expect.
• clean towel, hand sanitizer, stain remover, and a change of clothes (especially pants) for your own hygeine after the mission. Nobody likes to wear poo.
• tar removal wipes for YOU, if you will be rescuing from tarry beaches.
• analgesics, asthma or allergy medicine for YOU. You may encounter something you're allergic to. I'm allergic to bunnies and other varminty types.
• band-aids.
• in fact, a first-aid kit would be first rate.
  

*A word about terrycloth and other fabrics with stringy edges or big loops: little toes can get snagged in these and lose circulation or be otherwise injured. It's better to stick to fabric without stringy edges and without loops for any cloth that will be left with an unsupervised animal, even for a short time. I find the cheap polyester fleece used in most cheap lap blankets to be completely ideal.

Welcome!

Everybody has a moment sometime in their life when they wonder how the hell they managed to get into a given situation. If you're a wildlife rescuer/transporter, it may be the time that you're hip deep in surf trying to catch a diving bird or the time you're holding a pelican and watching a stream of polymorphous mites swarm onto your arm as if it were the land of milk and honey.

But rescuing wildlife isn't all mites and physical exhaustion--although there's plenty of that for one lifetime--and it is one of the most rewarding volunteer service positions available. It's like being an EMT for injured critters; you arrive on the scene, assess the situation, and take them to the rehab center for evaluation and medical attention. Only no one pays you and you don't do any medicine yourself, but I think you get the idea. The joy comes from knowing that you made the animal's situation a little better off than it was, with a much higher possibility that they'll be healthy and back in their original environment.

Linda and I have been transporting animals for Pacific Wildlife Care for the better part of a year now and we've had a lot of interesting experiences. We've started this blog to record our own adventures in transporting, as well as to invite participation from other transporters or people who have had similar experiences interacting with wildlife.