Athena
Baby Foxy Baby
Adult Foxy Baby
Ronald Raven & Bubba
Woodrow
Wonky
Ulysses learns to swim
Animals of Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary
Releases, especially those that come after a protracted rehabilitative period, can be bittersweet. The longer these animals are in our care, the more attached we become to them and a part of us longs to keep them in our lives.
But even stronger than our affection is our desire to see them returned to the lives they deserve to live. We take both comfort and pleasure in envisioning Woodrow hammering away at a tree in search of insects, imagining our pair of ravens soaring along the mountainside, picturing our trio of screech owls nesting in forest trees, or visualizing our lone huntress Athena gliding noiselessly through the night.
But mostly we feel honored to have shared a portion of their lives, however brief it might have been.
Athena - Almost an Education Animal
In early 2008, a Barred Owl was struck by a car. Her rescuers brought her to the Wildlife Center of Virginia where she received two surgeries to repair her broken wing. As they commonly do, the Wildlife Center asked Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary to take in the owl for rehabilitation. She spent the spring and summer recuperating in a custom-built pen at the sanctuary. But despite the best of care the owl couldn't recover her ability to fly without making any sound, as all wild owls must do to hunt effectively. Without this skill, she would likely succumb to starvation in the wild.
Rockfish applied for permission to keep the owl at the Sanctuary as an education animal - and named her Athena, after the Greek goddess of heroic endeavors.
Shortly after, fate delivered another Barred Owl to the Sanctuary, this one orphaned and barely more than a baby. He was put in the raptor pen with Athena, hoping she would serve as a foster mother to him. She immediately took him under her wing teaching her foster baby how to fly, eat and hunt.
When the baby was independent enough to be assessed for release, he returned to the Wildlife Center of Virginia for the use of their flight cage and diagnostic tools, the final preparation for release. Athena went along for support. When it came time to release the young owl, the Center determined Athena, in fostering her "baby" had developed enough strength and agility to, once again, fly silently. She, too, could return to the wild.
The baby barred owl was released in the National Forest near Crozet and Athena was returned to where she was found in Rockingham County, to be released in her natural community.
Foxy Baby
The Rockfish Wildllife Sanctuary crew were pleased to open the 2008 season with a very special visitor - a baby grey fox. This little fellow (called a cub or a kit), was so tiny his eyes weren't even open yet. He made his way to the Sanctuary after his mom got hit by a car. Kept in a quiet, secluded room and bottle-fed several times a day, the little kit was one of the cutest critters we've ever had at the Sanctuary.
Pictures could hardly capture the appeal of his fuzzy fur, his tightly sealed eyes, and his snub little baby fox face. Although we all longed to keep him so we could watch as he matured during the rehabilitation process, we had to do what was best for him. After a series of phone calls we located another rehabber who specialized in foxes and who could provide a surrogate mother for the growing kit. Last Christmas, we received a Christmas card with a phenomenal photo of a gorgeous fox on the cover - it was our little kit, all grown up. Seeing that fox in all his glory was a tangible and powerful reminder of why we do what we do at the Sanctuary.
Ronald Raven and Bubba : An Exceptional Pair
In the spring of 2008, Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary received a pair of ravens who had been rescued - or more likely kidnapped - somewhere in West Virginia. They'd been kept in a cardboard box and fed dog food at irregular intervals. By the time their rescuer realized he needed help, the birds were severely malnourished and two of the three were suffering from metabolic bone disease. One of the trio had to be sent off for surgery immediately and, unfortunately, another was so debilitated that she died shortly after her arrival at the Sanctuary.
We quickly grew attached to the raven who remained in our care. Breaking the unwritten rehabber rule never to name an animal you plan to release (a rule that all of us now break more frequently than we enforce,) We dubbed him Ronald Raven. Inquisitive, interactive and oddly affectionate, Ronald soon became the star of the Sanctuary. When his brother was able to rejoin him, we christened him Bubba and kept the pair outside in the corvid cage where they chattered and chortled and cached food all day long.
The pair flourished in our care and eventually had to be moved to a rehab facility
with a larger, longer flight pen so they could build up their strength in preparation for
release. As the time for them to go approached, we anxiously awaited the vetʼs final
pronouncement on Bubbaʼs condition. The poor care he received in his infancy
contributed to significant nerve damage in one of his feet and one of his talons was
virtually unusable.
When word came in that he was fit for release, we drove the two brothers - now fully grown and not so inclined toward affection - to the top of Wintergreen mountain. We filmed the release, which was spectacular. Both birds shot out of their carrier at top speed and wheeled and circled above our heads before they settled atop a nearby roof. We called out our good-byes and they graciously spent a few moments answering us with loud, victorious caws before they flew off and disappeared into the woods.
Woodrow - Pileated to the Core
Our most noteworthy success of the 2009 season was Woodrow, the large Pileated Woodpecker who came our way. Woodrow spent a couple of weeks inside, turning all the sticks we gave him into piles of sawdust and making his distinctive grunting noise whenever we approached with food.
Eventually Woodrow moved to an outdoor cage where we continued to feed him a specially concocted, nutrient dense bird batter which we administered in a medicine dropper. Fortunately for us, Woodrow was a gentle bird who never pecked unnecessarily hard or attacked the hands that fed him. Woodrow grew almost as attached to us as we did to him.
But as we always hope, the time came to let Woodrow return to the wild. For weeks after he was released, Woodrow would swoop down over our heads several times a day to beg for food and to spend a few minutes with us. As Woodrow grew more self-sufficient, his visits grew less frequent and he eventually stopped visiting altogether. The memory of watching him zoom in for a touchdown on the deck or execute a perfect landing on a nearby tree is one that we'll all cherish, and Woodrow will stand out in memories as a truly fantastic triumph.
Wonky - Against all Odds
Early in the summer of 2008, we received a small screech owl whoʼd fallen from
his nest and survived attacks by both a dog and a cat. The tiny, fluffy owlet was so
severely concussed that he exhibited almost no normal screech owl behavior. Heʼd flop
face first onto the floor of his carrier and scrabble his little legs furiously as he struggled
to perform what appeared to be a headstand. At feeding time, heʼd fling himself onto his
back and bicycle his feet in the air while he scolded us roundly for trying to entice him to
eat. Because his behavior was so erratic and his balance so precarious, we called him
Wonky, and he grew to be a major celebrity at the Sanctuary, despite his small stature.
When Wonky was well enough to be moved outside he didnʼt even attempt to fly
at first, preferring instead to hop. Heʼd puff his tiny wings out just a bit and bounce from
the far end of his cage to the door whenever weʼd walk past and pause to talk to him.
Occasionally, weʼd find him face-down in the mulch, scrabbling to get into the headstand
he never did manage to master, and he still swayed a little whenever he stood in one
spot for any length of time, but he was no longer quite so belligerent at feeding time.
As the summer wore on, Wonky started flapping his wings and was soon able to
fly well enough to perch either on or in his boxes. He began eating on his own and he
started warning us away with a stuttering call or a clicking beak when we got too close for his comfort. It was wonderful to see him improving and starting to act more owl-like,
but his prospects for release were still highly uncertain. And then Wonky suffered
another injury, this one potentially more debilitating than the attacks and concussion that
originally landed him at Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary: A woodpecker in the pen adjacent to his
pecked Wonky in the eye and blinded him.
This critical compromise to his vision effectively ensured that Wonky couldnʼt be
released. We began filling out the paperwork required to allow him to remain as a
permanent resident, and we started trying to acclimate him to being handled in
preparation for his new job as an education ambassador.
Wonky didnʼt adapt well to his new role, however. He reacted with clicks and
kicks when we tried to handle him; he shrank into the far corner of his carrier when he
was displayed to groups of people; he spent his days perched on top of his box, gazing
out at the trees that surrounded him. It was obvious to all of us that Wonky was never
going to be a happy or effective education owl so we eventually stopped trying to handle
him and let him live in peace, trying to take comfort in the fact that weʼd successfully
rehabbed him against significant odds.
Although the quirky behaviors that had earned him his name had disappeared,
Wonky was still very much a Sanctuary superstar, but there was an increasing sense of
sadness about him. We discovered that other rehabbers had released birds with only
one good eye. In fact, a report from the University of Minnesota Raptor Center
documents the case of a Great Horned Owl who was blinded in one eye and reported
alive and well in the wild four and a half years after his release. If that owl could live in
the wild, maybe our little screecher could, too. But before we could make a decision
about what to do with Wonky, he made it for us.
Animals are sentient creatures; they have their own thoughts, feelings and even
agendas, which donʼt always correspond to ours. In rehab work, weʼre reminded of this
all the time, never more effectively than when an animal rebukes us for missing his cues
and takes matters into his own hands (figuratively speaking) as Wonky did this summer
when he released himself. No scrabbling, no hopping, no hesitating - Wonky saw the
door to his cage open and he shot out with purpose and intent, soaring off into the
distance without looking back. He was considerate enough, however, to grant us the
favor of calling out and even flying past on several occasions after his release, just to let
us know that he was all right.
Releases, as Iʼve said before, can be bittersweet. Wonkyʼs wasnʼt. He overcame
seemingly insurmountable odds and went from being a Sanctuary superstar to a
Sanctuary success story in the space of the few short seconds it took for him to take
wing and make his bid for freedom. By doing so, he paid us the highest compliment
possible: He gave us proof of a job well done and provided the motivation to keep
doing it.
Ulysses the mighty duck
Ulysses came to Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary in November of 2006 from Roanoke. He had flown into a water treatment tank and had broken his wing. Workers at the facility tried to get him out but were unable to reach him. Alone in the tank filled with chemicals for three months, it is a wonder Ulysses survived. Not surprisingly, when at last they could rescue him, Ulysses was in terrible shape.
The break in his wing, likely a compound fracture, had healed but his feathers were sticking straight up in the air. The nails on his webbed feet were worn away from his futile attempts to escape. He was emaciated and had limited movement of the broken wing. A local wildlife rehabber brought him to Rockfish Wildlife Sanctuary.
After one month at RWS, his feathers looked healthy and shiny, his nails had grown, and he had gained weight. Behaviorally, though, he still needed a lot of rehabilitation. His 10x10 cage provided both land and water yet Ulysses would stay in just one place unable to get in and out of the water comfortably. The RWS staff began to put his food increasingly farther away and he began to move around the cage with more ease, eventually acting more like a duck.
Ulysses never was able to return to the wild, but his life at Rockfish was the next best thing.