\u201cOwls are one of the few bird of prey species that can live with just one eye. They can be released because they hear so well \u2014 they hunt with their hearing a lot\u201d<\/p>\n
Published Apr 07, 2024<\/span> \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 Last updated 2\u00a0hours ago<\/span> \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 5 minute read<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.<\/p>\n An anemic mallard. A rainbow-necked pigeon with a busted wing.<\/p>\n A big brown bat with swollen wrists.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n A short-tailed stoat, a.k.a. weasel, with rodenticide poisoning.<\/p>\n All in a morning\u2019s work for Dr. Daren Mandrusiak, a veterinarian specializing in exotic animals.<\/p>\n At an Edmonton-based non-profit organization, the recent Monday morning\u2019s sick parade is diverse. The patients are tiny and frequently dangerous by nature.<\/p>\n Advertisement 2<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n REGISTER \/ SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n or<\/span><\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n At WILDNorth\u2019s Edmonton wildlife hospital, 12515 128 St., precautions must be taken against tooth and claw.<\/p>\n An unusually bedraggled bald eagle was lethargic \u2014 to the point of not seeming to mind being handled. Never a good sign.<\/p>\n His optic nerves were damaged \u2014 he didn\u2019t respond even to a swipe of a hand near his striking yellow eyes.<\/p>\n A lead test revealed the raptor had likely been snacking on carrion that had been shot with lead ammunition.<\/p>\n \u201cThey eat carcasses from hunting, or from like euthanasia of a cow, and will often pick up a little bit of ammunition with pieces of meat,\u201d Mandrusiak said.<\/p>\n Once the lead shot hits the acidic stomach, the bird develops lead toxicosis. The neurotoxin binds calcium in the nerves and causes globalized neurologic issues.<\/p>\n Staff cut up a plastic folder to attach to the tail of the eagle to protect feathers he\u2019d need to fly again.<\/p>\n They put him on chelation therapy to leech the lead out, but the bird probably had brain damage, Mandrusiak said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can leave some pretty substantial and long-lasting impacts,\u201d he said, noting that lead shot is an issue for humans as well.<\/p>\n Headline News<\/p>\n Thanks for signing up!<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Advertisement 3<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cIngested contamination of lead is a big problem for children of hunters who may end up having low-grade lead toxicity over their lives because you shoot a grouse or something with lead ammunition and you accidentally ingest them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn small portions, it can actually delay a child\u2019s mental development. It\u2019s a big issue.\u201d<\/p>\n Mandrusiak volunteers his time at WILDNorth, one of several animal causes he and the rest of the staff at southwest Edmonton\u2019s Harvest Pointe Animal Hospital \u2014 where he\u2019s a veterinarian to exotic pets \u2014 support.<\/p>\n A self-described \u201cbird nerd,\u201d he loves taking care of the wild creatures. At work, his bread-and-butter is tame exotics \u2014 cockatiels, boa constrictors, lop-eared rabbits, chinchillas.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only thing I don\u2019t do is dogs and cats,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Many vets are reluctant to work on wild or exotic creatures, said Mandrusiak, who works to implement \u201cfear free\u201d avian techniques to decrease the stress of his feathered patients.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really an underserved community of animals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mandrusiak keeps a lookout for patients who, sick as they may be, seem to suffer a bit more for time spent in healing captivity and need to make their way back to the wild pronto.<\/p>\n Advertisement 4<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Week by week, much of the news is good. The short-tailed stoat who ingested rat poison lived to feel much better, and to see her camouflage-friendly coat turn from the white ermine phase of winter to the stylish brown of spring.<\/p>\n The Edmonton wildlife hospital has a treatment room; on-site radiology and on-site surgery and short-term housing.<\/p>\n WILDNorth\u2019s Parkland County Rehabilitation Centre offers flight pens, pools, and housing for long-term rehabilitation to take patients through the recovery process to release.<\/p>\n The hospital and rehabilitation centre are open seven days a week, 365 days a year, looked after by a dedicated cadre of staff and more than 200 volunteers.<\/p>\n Since 1989, WILDNorth \u2014 formerly the Wildlife Rehabilitation Society of Edmonton \u2014 has helped more than 40,000 birds and small mammals, drawing patients from as far away as the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n Presiding over the Edmonton WILDNorth facility just off Yellowhead in North Edmonton, a big black dog named Fable is the resident greeter and most avid volunteer.<\/span><\/p>\n Advertisement 5<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Quiet and unflappably friendly, Fable gazes with a measure of sympathy at visitors and animals alike, looming like a talisman in the doorway between lobby and hospital.<\/p>\n Fable knows better than to bark \u2014 or to follow her humans into the land of creatures tucked away in their temporary digs.<\/p>\n Adopted by executive director Dale Gienow, she spent her youth as a K9 ambassador for the Edmonton Humane Society.<\/p>\n The other ambassador is Corvy the raven. Saved in infancy by well-meaning animal lovers, he quickly learned to rely on humans.<\/p>\n It became clear Corvy was too habituated to be kindly released. When placed in an enclosure with two wild-raised baby ravens, he eschewed their skittish natures, happily hopping toward any human interloper as an expected source of food and companionship.<\/p>\n Corvy has taught himself a few words \u2014 not including \u201cNevermore!\u201d \u2014 but repeats them on his own timetable only.<\/p>\n With gleaming black feathers and bright and curious corvid eyes, he\u2019s a lively focal point on visits.<\/p>\n Within a sterile field of a few cubic feet, Mandrusiak and Carly Lynch, RVT, WILDNorth\u2019s director of WildCare, worked to save the livelihood of a Great Horned owl whose right eye had deadened when he was struck by a car, likely when swooping in to snag some small mammalian snack.<\/p>\n Advertisement 6<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Owls lead with their faces when they fly, and the iris was destroyed, the pupil deformed.<\/p>\n Saving the bird meant an ocular evisceration \u2014 removing the margins of the eyelids and scooping out the cornea, but leaving the shell of the eye in the skull so it could heal and fill up with tissue, as the owl\u2019s prominent eyes<\/span><\/p>\n make up a significant weight in their skull.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf we take all of that out, then he\u2019ll sit (crooked) and then he\u2019s not going to be able to hear properly because he\u2019s not going to be straight,\u201d Mandrusiak said.<\/p>\n \u201cOwls are one of the few bird of prey species that can live with just one eye. They can be released because they hear so well \u2014 they hunt with their hearing a lot,\u201d Mandrusiak said.<\/p>\n The Great Horned is one of the fluffiest of all owl species because they winter in the Alberta chill, so the gentlest way to find the skin for an injection is by blowing gently to part the down to the skin.<\/p>\n The trickiest part of the surgery was anesthesia. A wild patient can\u2019t itemize any other underlying conditions \u2014 issues with cardiovascular or organ problems.<\/p>\n The owl\u2019s heart rate was 180, boding well.<\/p>\n The owl went off to rehab to heal. He has a permanent wink, of course, and now he has to learn to keep (one) eye out for prey while hunting to get back on his game, so to speak.<\/p>\n \u201cWe expect a full recovery at this point and, assuming he rehabilitates well, a release,\u201d Mandrusiak said.<\/p>\n jcarmichael@postmedia.com<\/p>\n Recommended from Editorial<\/p>\n Springtime skunk invasion short-lived but stinky<\/span><\/p>\n<\/li>\n![\"Edmonton](\"https:\/\/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital\/edmontonjournal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/but_2583.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=288&h=216&sig=ZqTiCn8Jb0dAEWUjwHGuaQ\" "\\"\\"")
Veterinarian Dr. Daren Mandrusiak examines a bald eagle that may be suffering from the effects of lead poisoning at WILDNorth rehab centre on March 25, 2024. <\/span> Photo by Shaughn Butts<\/span> \/Postmedia<\/span><\/p>\nArticle content<\/h2>\n
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Don\u2019t use lead shot<\/span><\/h2>\n
![\"Edmonton](\"https:\/\/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital\/edmontonjournal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/but_2625.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=288&sig=s5KLdmF8mKdwO8xRRX25EQ\" "\\"\\"")
A Bald Eagle is examined at WILDNorth rehab centre on March 25, 2024, by Carly Lynch and Dr. Daren Mandrusiak, The bird is being treated for lead poisoning.<\/span> Photo by Shaughn Butts<\/span> \/Postmedia<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Headline](\"https:\/\/dcs-static.gprod.postmedia.digital\/15.8.3\/websites\/images\/newsletters\/icon-ej-headlineNews.svg\" "\\"\\""){kind=icon}
<\/p>\nBig-hearted volunteer<\/span><\/h2>\n
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A Bald Eagle is examined at WILDNorth rehab centre on March 25, 2024, by Carly Lynch and Dr. Daren Mandrusiak, The bird is being treated for lead poisoning.<\/span> Photo by Shaughn Butts<\/span> \/Postmedia<\/span><\/p>\nBirds of a feather<\/h2>\n
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Corvy, the resident raven, poses with executive director Dale Gienow at WILDNorth rehab centre on March 25, 2024.<\/span> Photo by Shaughn Butts<\/span> \/Postmedia<\/span><\/p>\nOwl in a day\u2019s work<\/h2>\n
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A great horned owl is examined prior to having eye surgery at WILDNorth rehab centre on March 25, 2024. The owl was hit by a car and suffered an eye injury.<\/span> Photo by Shaughn Butts<\/span> \/Postmedia<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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