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31 December 2012

Dear Friend and Supporter,

Bird Ally X, like so many around the world, faced a very challenging year in 2012.

In 2012 we cared for 100 cat caught songbirds. Rescued over 50 birds entangled in old fishing line and hooks, and of course, over 250 young Brown Pelicans caught in point source pollution from fish cleaning tables all along California’s Redwood Coast.

These rescues, plus hundreds more were possible because of your generous support.

In 2012, Bird Ally X published the groundbreaking An Introduction to Aquatic Bird Rehabilitation, the first manual of its kind. Wildlife rehabilitators from around the world have responded enthusiastically. For 2013 we will publish a manual on washing birds contaminated by various types of pollution.

Our work teaching rehabilitation of aquatic birds, as well as our work caring for injured and orphaned wildlife would not be complete without efforts to eliminate and minimize the hazards industrial civilization presents to our wild neighbors. To this end we are working with US Fish and Wildlife Service and California Department of Fish and Game, as well as municipal and county agencies to help reduce the number of injuries to marine birds at boat launches and fish cleaning stations due to fish waste. 

There only a few hours left in 2012 for your contribution to help aquatic birds and the people who care for them to be tax-deductible this year. Our work for 2013 will depend on your support. Thank you for being a part of our accomplishments in 2012, we look forward to continuing these efforts and more in 2013.

In alliance with wild birds and all wildlife,
Wishing you a joyfulNew Year,           

Monte Merrick
co-Director Bird Ally X

 

Why We Rehabiltate Brown Pelicans

 Should Brown Pelicans be rehabilitated? 

There has been recent media chatter regarding the rescue and treatment  of fish oiled Brown Pelicans and other birds by Bird Ally X at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center. A recent opinion piece in the North Coast Journal,  "Bird by Bird", asked outright if “we should be scrubbin’ these birds?” In the week since its publication BAX staff has had to field this question repeatedly, from those who are volunteering their time, from community leaders, and from those who would like to see this issue swept under the rug.

The most important point is that this crisis was caused by improper fish waste disposal that can be tracked directly to the discharge pipes and infrastructure at Shelter Cove and Crescent City. The harbor districts with jurisdiction over these cleaning tables had been made aware of this problem the previous year. Yet nothing was done in the intervening months before the Young of the Year Pelicans arrived this summer. Federal law prohibits harming Brown pelicans and other wildlife. State law prohibits discharging any substance harmful to fish, plants, birds or mammals into any State water. The discharge pipe at Shelter Cove, an Area of Special Biological Significance, and the cleaning station outflow in Crescent City have contaminated hundreds of pelicans and killed many more. 

 
Fish oil and petroleum are similar in how they compromise a bird's waterproofing, leading to hypothermia and emaciation. Unless rescued these birds die. Fish oil however does not cause internal damage. The health problems petroleum spill victims suffer that cause disruption in their reproductive cycles are due to ingesting hydrocarbons, not the rehabilitation process. The Pelicans we are treating need to be washed and fed. Very little else is wrong with them. We have no reason to believe that this calamity will have a deleterious impact on their future breeding success. To suggest otherwise is misleading.

Rehabilitators working with Brown Pelicans in California have been banding these birds before release for the last 20 years. Still, band returns, usually found when a bird dies, are not very reliable for post-release survival data... once banded, very few birds are ever seen again. Other post-release studies have their own problems - radio telemetry devices can be a problem for plunge-diving species. In fact most methods of tracking wildlife post-release can be antithetical to the goals and principles of wildlife rehabilitation, which seeks to return wildlife, injured or orphaned anthropogenically, as closely to their condition pre-injury as possible. The ethical ground that we stand on in order to intervene in the lives of wild animals is our commitment to this return. While post-release data can provide information that may help us improve the care we provide, these studies must be designed to be as non-invasive as possible, ensuring they do not add to the simple risk of a free and wild life.


The question of whether or not to treat an injured animal is glib. It fails to imagine the actual world. What is the alternative? Let them suffer and die from their injuries? Capture and euthanize? 


If you are walking down the street and you find an injured Robin, what will you do? Wildlife rehabilitators answer this question many times over every day.

Wildlife rehabilitation professionals, including those of us at Bird Ally X, spend a great deal of time reviewing practices and improving care. Our experiences and results pre-release are certainly a good indication of our likely success post-release. Unless we attempt to provide care there is no learning. To propose that wildlife rehabilitation should not be attempted because not enough biologists have studied its efficacy is disingenuous. Such a proposition poses as science while rejecting the practice that advances knowledge. Such a proposition leaves no room for action, nor does it allow for progress, or a difference, to be made.

In alliance with Brown Pelicans and all wildlife,

Monte Merrick
co-director, Bird Ally X



If you support our work and wish to contribute you can use our Paypal button at the top of this page, or send a check to: 

Bird Ally X
PO Box 1020
Arcata CA  95518 

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Redwood Coast Brown Pelican/Fish Waste Response

Nearly 200 Birds in Care Contaminated by Fish Waste; Discharge Pipes at Fish Cleaning Stations to Blame

Since the last week in June 184 birds, almost all recently hatched Brown Pelicans, have been admitted for care by Bird Ally X at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center. All but three of these birds were contaminated by fish waste. While the rest of the West coast is seeing an unusually large number of Brown pelicans dying of emaciation -  for reasons not yet understood -  here on the North coast of California, Brown Pelicans and other birds face a different and more easily identified threat. Discharge pipes at fish cleaning stations in Shelter Cove and Crescent City are responsible for the contamination of hundreds of Brown Pelicans and untold numbers of gulls, primarily Heermann’s Gulls, who often forage and hunt with Brown Pelicans.

These birds are being doused in fish waste as they forage for scraps beneath the outflow of these polluting pipes. Fish waste and fish oil disrupt the feather structure that allows a seabird to remain dry and warm when entering the cold waters of the North Pacific. Without rescue they die.


 






Multiple incidents of such contaminations have been documented with photographs and video by Bird Ally X rescue crews in Crescent City and Shelter Cove.



California Department of Fish and Game code 5650 (a)(6) specifically states that it is illegal to allow to enter into State waters any material that “is deleterious to fish, plant life, mammals, or bird life.”

California EPA requires that fish waste from marinas be treated as waste water or sewage, not discharged into State  waters.


After much public pressure, Crescent City Harbor District (CCHD)has reportedly closed the cleaning station with this type of discharge pipe. Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District (HBHRCD), which has jurisdiction over Shelter Cove’s fish cleaning station has yet to do so. Even now, more birds are being contaminated by this pipe.

These discharge pipes have injured hundreds of birds and killed many more. Biologist Deborah Jaques has said that over 50 pelican carcasses have been recovered. It is unknowable how many have died, or are yet to die.

Pelicans and gulls killed by fish cleaning station discharge is not new to the North Coast. In August/September 2011 Bird Ally X at Humboldt Wildlife Care Center rescued 50 Birds from Crescent City and Shelter Cove suffering from the exact same problem. 

Besides releasing 43 birds, Bird Ally X met with Harbor District officials and provided low-cost, easily maintained solutions. Both Cal EPA and US EPA recommend composting as a zero discharge solution to fish waste at public marinas and boat launches. Both HBHRCD and CCHD have had nearly a year to eliminate the source of pollution and stop killing and injuring Brown Pelicans and other wildlife.

As well as the cost paid by these iconic birds, nearly all of whom are still adolescents, less than 4 months old (Brown Pelicans can live 40 years), the costs incurred by Bird Ally X and Humboldt Wildlife Care Center, the only two permitted rehabilitators on California’s North Coast that can respond to this crisis, threaten our ability to continue as organizations. To date over 180 Birds have been brought into care and more are to come. Yet the Harbor District so far has refused to offer to cover any of the costs at all. This response could cost these organizations jointly over $100,000, not factoring in staff salary.

Volunteers to help with the labor-intensive task of rehabilitating this many large birds are vital to our success. Financial donations are also crucial. Each pelican eats 3-5 pounds of fish each day. That amounts to over $500/day on fish alone.

TO HELP:

visit
www.birdallyx.net
or
www.humwild.org
to learn more and to contribute to the care of these birds.

Contact the Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District and Crescent City Harbor District. Demand that they stop illegally polluting California Coastal water and killing California Brown Pelicans. Demand that they pay their fair share for the care of the Pelicans they’ve injured.

HBHRCD - http://www.humboldtbay.org/contact/

CCHD - http://www.ccharbor.com/