Fellow Mortals--Compassion Changes Everything

Dear supporters,

Every month, we receive an e-mail from GlobalGiving with the welcome news that we are receiving funds thanks to your generosity. Those gifts are important all year long, but never so much so as in the winter time, when we have fewer people donating to the hospital, but still are admitting animals and have many critical patients receiving care.

This winter was busier than usual after a very busy year. Along with the injured squirrels, rabbits, opossums, and songbirds, we are admitting many sick geese, herring gulls, red-tailed hawks, bald eagles, and mergansers, as well as a trumpeter swan.

As you probably know, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is affecting domestic poultry worldwide. It is also affecting and taking the lives of thousands of wild birds. Every species has different symptoms, which we have learned to recognize, and while we know we will not save them all, we can provide relief from pain, a warm, safe, quiet place, and rest.

The good news is that some individuals must survive for the species to survive, and so we have continued to admit sick birds and have been providing care, even though the mortality rate is high. One young eagle dies after only days in care; another survives and gradually becomes  asymptomatic and is ready to regain strength for return to the wild. 

In January and February, hundreds of red-breasted mergansers were found dead or dying on Lake Michigan near the Wisconsin/Illinois shoreline. We admitted several from that group, and three are recovering.

On a happy note, we are able to provide continuing care for a young beaver transferred to us from a wildlife rehabilitation facility in Pennsylvania. She came to them in October, at just a few months old, with a bad eye injury and in critical condition. Beaver do better with a companion and so they reached out to us and found we have a young one the same age. After the new beaver settles in to her change in care, we will introduce the beavers to each other so that they can grow up together and be released together sometime in the next two years. (There are previous reports on our page about other beaver we have had in care).

You have been an important part of many of these animals' stories, and we appreciate what you make possible.

Thank you for being part of our work this winter. With the return of the red-winged blackbirds this week, we know that spring is right around the corner!