I had never heard of this before-so I did what anyone would do: I Googled it.  After an hour of sifting through websites and message boards, I happened upon information about a disease termed “Pink Feather Syndrome.”

Around 2005,  mute swans in the UK belonging to Queen Elizabeth II began getting sick and showing a peculiar clinical sign: Their feathers were turning pink.  The Regal Swan, a Florida-based research organization, spent two years sampling and testing, and finally have discovered that Pink Feather Disease is caused by a previously un-named bacterium.  They are currently trying to DNA sequence it to classify it.  This novel bacteria have been found on egrets, ibises, swans and white pelicans.

Here is what Pink Feather looks like on a Trumpeter Swan’s wing feathers:

I emailed The Regal Swan and five minutes later, two researchers from the organization had called me, explained what they knew about Pink Feather Syndrome, how to treat it (baths with Dawn dishsoap) and promptly requested we mail them some feather samples from any swans that came in exhibiting these feather issues.

Now, several months later, Pink Feather Syndrome has been diagnosed in some Minnesota Swans and WRC continues to send samples from infected swans to them to help further their research. The samples are taken from damaged feathers, so as to not damage to healthy feathers, and involves snipping off the tips of the damaged feathers. Here’s a better look at how feathers with the bacteria on them look compared to healthy feathers. Note that this is on the same bird:

The Regal Swan is also looking into the possibility of this bacterium damaging colored feathers as well. Here I am collecting feathers from a Lesser Scaup that was humanely euthanized due to severe body trauma:

There is much about this syndrome that we don’t know yet, but The Regal Swan is doing everything they can to continue the research and help save these birds.

Providing important samples like this to help further research into wildlife diseases is an important role that we play as one of the nation’s busiest wildlife hospitals. It’s exciting and rewarding to be part of such a collective effort.

To learn more about the Regal Swan and their work, visit their Kickstarter page which has a video on it.

I have worked with some pretty amazing animals since I started working in the field of wildlife rehabilitation 13 years ago, but the adult Double-crested Cormorant we admitted late last week definitely takes the cake as the coolest bird I have ever had the privilege of working with.

He (or she – cormorants are “monomorphic” meaning they have the same plumage) is in full breeding plumage, which I have never seen before. The cormorant’s eyes are emerald green (the actual iris turns this cool aquamarine color during the breeding season) with bright, turquoise blue markings around the edge, and the inside of its mouth is a bright aquamarine as well.

We managed to snap a photo of its mouth during a recent med session. (Whenever we hand “pill” a bird we always check its mouth and passageways to make sure the pill is not caught somewhere.) Note its brilliant eye ring and the coloration of its mouth:

The “crests,” which are only present during the breeding season, sit prominently atop its head and the feather mottling on its back is gorgeous. This bird is absolutely beautiful.

The cormorant was found caught in a dam in Welch, Minn., and presented weak and lethargic, exhibiting mild neurologic signs. I was concerned about some sort of head trauma, but was also immediately concerned about a fatal avian disease called Exotic Newcastle Disease (END). The virus causes mass die-offs of Double-crested Cormorants, and causes neurologic signs such as a head tilt/abnormal carriage of the head, ataxia (uncoordination), and paralysis of the legs and wings.

This cormorant isn’t showing any of the latter signs, but at the time of its admission to the Center, it definitely had a head droop and was ataxic when it tried to ambulate. The photo below was taken during its admit exam. It couldn’t even hold its head up:

Unfortunately, it is not interested in eating or drinking at this time, so we have to gavage (tube) feed it. It also has a high white blood cell count, so its body is trying to fight off some sort of infection.

All we can do for the cormorant right now is administer antibiotics and supportive care and hope that we see some signs of recovery. It’s already doing better, able to stand with its head upright for several minutes at a time. Here’s a photo taken yesterday during its feeding/medication session:

It’s also getting feistier – another good sign. Hopefully this beautiful specimen of a bird can rejoin its flock and raise some chicks this year!

Last fall there were a number of American White Pelicans that were too young to migrate.  We were able to release most of them into migrating flocks in southern Minnesota before they left, but this one didn’t mature fast enough and stayed with us through the winter.  Luckily,  while this individual is still wild, it is tolerating us and not getting too stressed out being here.

We don’t like to overwinter animals. Being with us, even if they tolerate us, is stressful and housing in captivity can cause problems.  This pelican developed a toe infection that could be from the type of flooring we have or its depressed immunity from being stressed or some trauma occurred trying to evade us, or simply a combination of several factors.

In this picture, Vet Leslie is sizing a cushioned shoe that the pelican will wear to protect the surgery site.  Below is a picture of the toe right after surgery.

And above is the toe after it has healed!

The toe infection required amputation of just the end of the toe; the surgery went fine and after several weeks of bandage changes, wearing a cushioned shoe and medications, we’re happy to say the pelican is as good as new!

Except it’s in full body molt right now.  If we released it in this state, a light rain would soak the pelican to the bone and likely cause hypothermia.  So as it warms up or its new feathers grow in (whichever comes first), we’ll release it into a flock of pelicans.

In the meantime, the volunteers get a kick out of feeding the pelican every day.  You can see in this video, that it definitely knows when feeding time is!

(Note that Amer. White Pelicans do not dive into the water after fish like Brown Pelicans. They swim and herd fish as a group then skim them out of the water, exactly like this one is doing in the video. You can really see how its pouch expands in the water and then how it strains the excess water out through the captured fish. This small pool is the pelican’s “feeding” pool. It has a much larger pool to swim in as well.)

But one of the most anticipated signs of spring for many birders is the return of the American Woodcock.

Our first woodcock admit of the season has just arrived. It was found unable to fly near Ecolab in Eagan.

Here’s Vet Renee examining its eyes:

They’re known for their unique electronic-sounding “peenting” call that they make in the evening (and into the night) and their aerial displays during the breeding season. If you live near a field, head out after 8pm this week and next and listen closely for their unique call. (three different calls are listed on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology site)

They use their long bills for probing for earthworms, their main diet. And, unlike many other birds where the hatchlings are up, walking around and following mom in the first few days, woodcocks cannot feed themselves until around day 4. (whereas Killdeer and other precocial birds feed themselves within a day of hatching)

Interestingly, woodcocks are not found west of the Great Plains states.

Upon exam, Vet Renee found some blood in its mouth and signs of central nervous system trauma, most likely a head injury. They’re very high stress birds and caring for them is challenging since their instinct is to leap straight up every time they’re startled.

If all goes well, this one should be released in a few days so it can continue migration to its breeding territory.

We admit 30-35 Trumpeter Swans every year and about half have lead toxicity. Of those, very few survive. That is why it was so exciting that this one made it. This swan was actually our 1st lead-poisoned swan of the season: It was admitted way back in late September! (our lead “season” runs from fall through the winter, so it actually straddles a calendar year)

Lead toxicity can take a long time to resolve, since the lead continually leeches out of the bones and soft tissues of the bird for many weeks or even months. This was the case with this swan. Its lead levels would drop, we would take it off medications, and then the lead levels would rise again. We would put it back on meds, and the cycle would repeat. Its lead level finally “plateaued” and after three successive weeks of testing, the lead levels remained the same. The swan was doing great, so it was time for it to go and get a second chance at life in the wild!

Before release, it was banded with a USFWS band. This way, scientists can keep track of the swan for years to come, and if for some reason it has another issue down the road, we will know that we have had this bird in our care before. Here is a photo of the swan being banded (our vet tech Katie Heino is holding the swan):

We then transported the swan to Monticello for release. There is a large population of swans that over-winter there on the Mississippi River in the open water with a readily-available food source, so it’s the perfect release site. There were about 2,000+ swans when we arrived!

After the swan came out of the carrier, it had a slight moment of confusion and started walking toward the shoreline instead of into the water with the other swans! But with some coaxing, it finally got the idea and paddled off where it joined the thousands of other swans.

Because the swan had been with us for so long, its flight feathers are not in the greatest condition (they take a beating when they’re enclosed). However, it has a safe place with other swans to reside while its new feathers grow in.

We also released another young swan at the same time, one that had come in a couple of weeks ago. That swan did NOT have lead poisoning, but was just very weak and thin. That swan had actually come from Monticello. Here it is swimming off to rejoin its friends and family. Right after this picture was taken, it took off flying, did a couple of laps around the other swans, and then landed in the water again. It was a really neat sight to see!

Swan releases are probably my favorite animal to release since they are unfortunately few and far between. I am so grateful that we were able to give these two a second chance!

A few weeks ago, we admitted several Canada Geese that were found weak in the same area in North Mankato.  Along with these geese were several dead ones, all in the same area.

After exams and tests, we found that all the geese had lead toxicity.  Radiographs (x-rays) revealed tiny lead shot in all of their ventriculi (gizzards or stomachs).  The radiograph below of one of these geese shows the tiny pellets in its system (they’re the brighter white round balls):

Below is a close-up of the lead

This radiograph is odd because there are so many, uniform lead pellets in the stomach of these geese.  One might think this is because hunting season recently finished and these geese have been shot; however, these metal pieces are in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract of the geese, meaning they had to eat it.  If the geese had been shot, we would see metal shot in the muscles, bones, etc, but not this many in the GI tract.  Also, lead only causes toxicity when it is in the GI tract because the stomach acids break it down and then it is absorbed.  Lead shot lodged in a muscle or other tissue doesn’t cause lead toxicity because it doesn’t break down and enter the blood system.

To illustrate the uniqueness of these radiographs,  check out the one below of a Trumpeter Swan we admitted last month with lead toxicity.

The metal in this radiograph is definitely not uniform!  And check out the close-up of the metal below.

You can almost make out bent hooks, large sinkers and even a small spinner!

We admit >30 swans each fall/winter, and almost all have lead toxicity.  Trumpeter Swans ingest lead fishing tackle  and shot that they see at the bottom of bodies of water when they have to forage in shallow areas  for food.   Typically, they eat aquatic vegetation, some insects and have even been seen eating fish when vegetation is low.  During the winter, when all the vegetation is gone, they end up looking on the bottom of lakes and rivers.  If that body of water has been fished in, there is lead tackle sitting on the bottom.  The swans see something shiny, mistake it for a minnow and eat it.

They also ingest small pebbles, or grit, to help their gizzards perform correctly. When they’re picking up small pebbles on the bottoms of the lakes and rivers, if pellets are present they just get ingested with everything else.

Canada Geese, however, are grazers.  They typically eat grass and other greens found on land/shoreline.  So how were these geese eating so many uniform lead shot?  Was someone poisoning them? Did some shot accidentally get dumped outside? I was thoroughly confused until a former conservation officer mentioned how the waves on a river/lake can wash spent shot up on the shoreline into piles.  Sure enough, check out the image below that I found online:

LEAD SHOT IN A HEAVILY USED TRAP RANGE FALL ZONE (courtesy of Nebraskalandmagazine.com http://outdoornebraska.ne.gov/blogs/2010/08/toxic-game-part-ii/)

Even though it is illegal to hunt waterfowl with lead shot, some people still do. Lead shot is still often used to shoot clay pigeons at shooting ranges, which is legal.  The shot accumulates at these areas in such a concentration that any animal that grazes could accidentally eat enough to cause toxicity.

To treat our geese, we flushed the lead out of their gizzards and found not only were they impacted with grass but also sand. Geese and other birds who graze use rocks and sand to help grind the greens up in their gizzard.  These geese were probably grazing on a shore line or shooting range and accidentally ingested the lead shot, mistaking it for a small rock.

Watching almost a dozen of these geese, >30 swans each winter and hearing about the dozens of bald eagles admitted each year to The Raptor Center with lead toxicity makes me wonder why it is still legal to use lead fishing tackle and lead ammunition? Fortunately, our state DNR is also concerned and is working with retailers to encourage hunters to switch to non-lead bullets. Here’s an article about the plight of Bald Eagles.

So what can you do? You can help spread the word by sharing this post via Facebook and Twitter.

Have a conversation with family and friends who hunt and fish. Ask them to use non-lead alternatives or better yet: give them the gift of non-lead items for birthdays, holidays or to celebrate the opening of the various sporting seasons.

Here’s more information on these alternatives:

Deer hunters can easily switch to copper and steel ammunition. And, in fact, copper ammunition is actually more accurate and it penetrates better than standard lead bullets. Here’s an article from WCCO on this option.

Unsure where to get non-lead ammunition? The bottom of this website has several manufacturers listed, and a simple Google search of  non-lead ammunition yields hundreds of results.

If you fish, non-lead fishing sinkers are available alongside the lead fishing sinkers at your local sporting goods store for only pennies more.

More information regarding lead toxicity in Minnesota wildlife can be found on the MNDNR website.

It is only appropriate that our 8900th patient of 2012 be an American Crow! We admitted more crows last year than any other year in history, primarily due to a heavy West Nile Virus summer.

This crow was very lucky to have been spotted and saved! A citizen saw the bird hanging from a tree and notified the police. Anoka County Parks Ranger Kris Shields responded to the call and with the help of others was safely able to obtain the bird, which was hanging from the tree by what appeared to be fishing line wrapped around its wing.

On physical exam, the line was found to be tightly wound around the tips of some flight feathers on the left wing. Some mild swelling was felt over the left shoulder, so the bird may have injured it as he/she was hanging and likely struggling. The crow was started on some anti-inflammatories and prescribed cage rest.

Now, one week later, the crow is doing very well in its flight room and will be released some time in the next week.

That combined with an abundant lack of information about WNV and crows, and that fact that there is no treatment for birds with WNV, led to a very stressful and sad summer for our medical staff as we watched more than 100 crows die.  Here’s a brief recap of how WNV impacted crows at WRC this year and what we learned:

• July – September (which is when WNV infection rates peak each year) we admitted 150+ American Crows; last year during the same time period we admitted < 50 crows.
• Over the last 12 years, WRC’s crow admission rate during this time period mimics the mosquito and human WNV infection rate in the Twin Cities (information compared to information on ArboNet by the CDC/USGS http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/usgs_frame.html ).  This implies that the majority of crows admitted during this time period are likely to have WNV.
• We did complete blood counts on many of these crows to see if we could help diagnose WNV infection on admission.  We found that WNV-infected crows had an increased level in heterophils (immune cells that respond to acute infection ) and a decreased number of eosinophils (immune cells that usually respond to allergic reactions and parasites), however, these are trends and do not diagnose WNV infection.  Instead, they must be used like a piece of the puzzle when looking at a crow that might have WNV.
• While some testing is available, it is expensive, slow and often doesn’t give a definitive answer.  We were unsuccessful in finding a test kit that we could purchase for use at the Center.
• Of the 150 crows admitted, 106 of them had clinical signs consistent with WNV AND either tested positive or died within a few days of admit.  Of the 106, 102 died and four survived (2 who had WNV and 2 who didn’t have WNV).
• No rehabilitated WNV-infected crow has been reported to survive and then be released. WRC has released one positive WNV-infected crow and expects to release another in a few months (it’s in the process of regrowing feathers). Watch a video of one of the recovered crows as Vet Renee does a final exam in its flight cage.
  

The numbers are sobering: This year, there were only four crows that survived out of 106 that presented signs of WNV; that’s a 2% survival rate.  So the question becomes, how do we reduce suffering while still finding a way to provide care for these crows?

We ask ourselves this question every day; we never stop thinking about the individual and treat every animal with the compassion and respect it deserves. It’s one of the toughest decisions we make as medical professionals in wildlife rehabilitation: If there is no treatment and an animal is suffering with slim chances for survival, when is euthanasia the kindest option?

Yesterday’s caseload reflects a pretty neat winter day here at WRC. In order of admittance:

Mallard
Pine Siskin
Hoary Redpoll
Rock Pigeon
Northern Flying Squirrel
Eastern Cottontail
Pine Siskin
Mallard
Canada Goose
Canada Goose
Trumpeter Swan
American White Pelican

Pretty interesting range of cases!

This first Pine Siskin came to us from Duluth. It was found sitting on a birdbath. The yard owner noticed it hadn’t been flying and went out to see if it was injured. Imagine her surprise when she was able to just pick the bird up! We didn’t find any wounds on it but it’s showing signs of central nervous system trauma, most likely from hitting a window. Vet Renee has prescribed treatment for head trauma. (The second Pine Siskin came from Forest Lake.)

The Hoary Redpoll also came from Duluth where it was found huddled on the ground, unable to fly. Initially Vet Renee suspected a broken wing, but under anesthesia she was able to look closer and discovered an infected puncture wound. The infection had spread to the muscles, causing them to become necrotic and decay. The poor bird literally had no muscles connecting the back of its wing to its body. We were able to quickly euthanize the bird saving it from additional pain.

By the way: If you have bird feeders, watch for both redpolls and siskins. It’s a finch irruption year, meaning they’re moving southward in larger numbers than normal, and moving farther south.

The pelican came from Smith Mill and is missing quite a few feathers and has abrasions on it.  While its body condition is good, it’s a bit weak so we’re testing it for lead.

The Trumpeter Swan has lead poisoning and is joining several other swans currently in our care.

One of the mallards has a pretty neat story: It was found at the Portland Dam site in Minneapolis caught in a whirlpool. It was  unable to swim or fly away. A man noticed it struggling and managed to rescue it using a long fishing net tied to a long extension pole. Unfortunately the mallard had an old fracture that had healed poorly so we had to euthanize it. But we’re so thankful to its rescuer for taking the time to fish it out of the river, helping to end its suffering.

This Northern Flying Squirrel seems so large compared to the Southern Flying Squirrels that we typically see. While the species is a bit larger in general, this squirrel (who’s pretty thin) actually weighed in at a common weight for Southern Flying Squirrels – despite its large size. It had a fracture in its leg along with several in its pelvic area and a corneal ulcer on one of its eyes. Vet Renee is going to attempt pining the femur fracture today. The fractures in the pelvis thankfully don’t involve the joints so with cage rest they should heal. The tricky part will be pining the tiny femur bones.

So there’s a look at one of our early-winter days at the Center. Wonder what today will bring…

West Nile Virus (WNV) crept up this year and hit our American Crow population hard.  So far, we’ve admitted 100 more crows than we admitted last year–and almost all of these extra crows were suspected of having West Nile Virus.

The word “suspect” is  key here. The problem is that all of the symptoms that our suspect crows exhibited (weakness, unbalanced, etc) are very vague.  Things like head trauma, toxicity and starvation can present exactly like a crow infected with WNV.   When a crow comes in unbalanced and weak, how am I supposed to know it has WNV?

As explained in previous posts, I had learned that the in-house test for WNV was no longer being made.  After some more research I found another test; this one could be performed in-house, however, it required the clinic to purchase a machine and supplies–this would likely greatly exceed what we could afford.  I emailed the company anyway (and have yet to hear back from them…).

I then emailed and called around to the University of Minnesota’s College of Veterinary Medicine Diagnostic Lab, the MN Zoo, the MN Department of Public Health, and several wildlife veterinarian colleagues in other states.  I was eventually referred to Metropolitan Mosquito Control who owned the machine to do in-house WNV testing.

Unfortunately, they had tested all the birds that they had allocated for the season so they would not test any of our crows.  I found an out-of-state diagnostic laboratory that would run antibody titers on crows for WNV.  This was great news, however, a titer only tells if an animal was exposed to WNV (not currently infected); also, this specific titer only detected the first few days of infection, meaning the test could come back “negative” and the patient could still have WNV  (many of our crows came in having been infected a week earlier).

This test also was costly and we wouldn’t get the results back for a week (up to this point, most crows had been dying 1-2 days after admit). What’s the point of doing this test when we wouldn’t get the results until after the patient had already died?

We were out of options and tired of watching crows die.  We began sending out this test, despite the futility, but we also began doing an in-house blood exam (counting the different types of blood and immune cells) to see if we could see a trend in the WNV positive birds.

We also began researching different treatment options for WNV and started suspect birds on a large regimen of different treatments for supportive care and secondary infections.  And then we waited, again…