Late October came with the swampy scent of lily pads slowly decomposing in Burnaby Lake, the sweet stench of detritus and stagnant water. It came with the screech of the Millennium Line in the early mornings, followed by lonely walks across rugby fields and through a network of trails to my practicum position at the Wildlife Rescue Association of BC. I had completed my Bachelor of Science in Applied Animal Biology at the University of British Columbia the previous May, and after I sought out the practicum position to gain experience in the emerging field of Animal Welfare Science. It was a month where I learned that wildlife rehabilitation wasn’t just online posts of successful releases. It was a month where I learned that the most impactful, selfless and honest gift that I could give was the gift of death.
The first lesson of the gift came through the life and death of a single Mew gull, Larus canus. It was young, maybe second-year. As all young gulls are – it was mostly brown. When gulls mature, they molt their colour and solid swaths of white, grey, and black emerge. My mew gull was spotty, its primary covert feathers dotted with whites and browns, its tail staring to develop definition between the dappled mid-section and the posterior border. Many of the primary wing feathers were broken partway down the shaft, jagged and ruffled. Intact wing feathers are important for flight, as their intricate structure helps generate lift. Interlocking Velco-like barbules create the delicate matrix of the feather, a knitted surface area in which air pushes up upon, and severe damage to them will disrupt the air as it flows across its surface. Feathers do not repair themselves after breakage; so, they must fully regrow. Prior to its admittance in the rehabilitation center, the Mew gull was grounded for weeks.
One of my first assignments in my practicum was to ‘fly’ the gull, encouraging it to try using its muscles, in case it could generate enough lift through strenuous flapping to overcome the disrupted air flow. It lived in the larger half of the ‘raptor pen’ – a pre-release flight enclosure reserved for gulls, ducks, and herons. I would approach the gull with a large towel, and often it would tilt its head and stare at me with unblinking eyes until I got too close. Just before I could drape the towel over the bird, it would run across the enclosure again and again – surprisingly fast for such a small being. It would stumble and trip over the logs and branches placed in the enclosure for enrichment until it grew too tired to continue. I would loosely wrap it up for a quick transport to a tower of milk-crates nearby, all the while dodging its quick bites and attempts to ward me off. Sometimes I couldn’t hold it far enough away from my body, and it would use its strong beak to latch onto my arm, my chest – and it hurt. Sessions with the gull would often leave me with dark red and purple welts across my upper body that bruised for weeks. I would unwrap and dump the gull on the milk crates, piled two, three, four high on the gravel floor. Occasionally, the bird would jump off on its own accord. It would flap once or twice, attempting to stabilize itself, but the descent would always result in a semi-controlled fall. Other times, I held the uppermost milk crate as it stood on top. While dodging its bites that came way too close to my face, I would quickly raise the crate into the air, enticing the gull to self-preserve and fly. It would usually crash land in the gravel after its initial jump. I tried and tried with the gull until it started to show signs of stress, usually open-mouth-breathing akin to the panting of an anxious dog. At that point, I would stop. I flew it daily, keeping detailed notes of any attempt to flap, any intention to try to flap for weeks. The feathers were too damaged to generate any lift, and the bird needed to complete a full moult of the primary flight feathers so it could fly free one day. It would take months for the feathers to fall out, one by one.
Every few days, I would give the Mew gull a physical examination. On top of the notes on its flight dis-ability, I would ensure that it was eating well through records of its weight, that there were no indications of negative well-being such as incessant pacing or plucking out its feathers, and that there were no new injuries. Birds that are grounded on unchanging substrate often develop pressure sores, or pododermatitis. These sores are often characterised by small scabs on the load-bearing areas of the digits and can often be quite painful, leading to further infection. As the gull failed to gain lift or flight, these sores started developing.
In the beginning, the pressure wounds would not be particularly painful, akin to an annoying light scrape. The gull was not displaying any negative effect in its behaviour, any signs of distress. It wasn’t lying down all the time, it was still eating, and it was still bright, alert, and responsive. These were good signs – the bird wasn’t suffering. However, it was inevitable that these sores would outpace the development of new feathers. It would be too stressful to move the gull from enclosure to enclosure to change the substrate under its feet, since the stress of constant change would worsen the sores. Personally, I had become quite attached to the gull as I worked with it daily, so it was with deep sorrow and responsibility that I wrapped the gull in a tight towel-wrap for the last time and brought it into the wildlife hospital for humane euthanasia. We gave the beautiful gift of death to the gull, as there was no ethical or moral justification for the continuation of its life.
The cedar hut stood at the left of the admissions building for over a year, and still the untreated timber retained its fresh scent. I was the only person on-site taking the Introductory Rehabilitation course run by the International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council course that day, though it felt like I had stolen half of the organization’s heaters to fend off winter’s cold seeping in. By the end of the course, my fingers felt as cold and brittle as the limbs of the deceased animals I was working with. Before me was a table with three precious plastic-wrapped bundles, a kidney dish a third full of shallow tap water, an array of syringes, and a half-foot long rubber gavage tube for force-feeding a liquid diet straight into the animal’s stomach. I had bandages, paper feather tape, vet wrap, and an array of syringes at my disposal. I set up my laptop behind this assortment. Six faces glanced at their own cameras, mirroring my own awkwardness as we waited for the Zoom course to start.
In the first bag, there was the Mew gull. It had been frozen, thawed, then frozen again four times over as different people used the gift of its body to learn proper rehabilitation techniques: physical examinations, gavage-feeding, wing-wraps, and emergency intradermal rehydration. It was strange to work with the Mew gull’s body after spending so long trying and failing to avoid the swipes of its bill. I still bore the scars from the gull’s resistance to my previous assignment. I don’t know if I looked at the bird fondly, or with despair. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel, pulling at stiff bones and tissues, injecting boluses of saline, and forcing the gavage tube down the stiff esophagus all the way into the crop. Murky colored water that reminded me of lake sludge bubbled from its mouth after removing the tube. Part of me found the experience interesting from a strictly scientific standpoint, but I also remember how sorrow seeped through me like how the gull’s diluted stomach contents slowly leaked onto the feathers around its bill.
“Based on the injuries, what do you think happened to your specimen?” the instructor asked after the section of the lecture on intake examinations. Most of my other classmates were brand new to the wildlife rehabilitation world, but me and a few others were just getting the certification for skills that we already knew. They checked their animals over, feeling for the feeling of crepitus – bone against bone, shards in the wrong places, angles that seemed not quite right. I ran my fingers over the thick calluses on the gull’s ventral toes, broken open by jagged welts.
When the round robin came to me: “I know mine, I was in the room when it was euthanized. I took him to the hospital. Foot sores.”
One by one, the Zoom class’s participants signed off after the promises of a fancy printed certificate coming in the mail, signifying that the course’s completion. I gathered my materials and unceremoniously wrapped the Mew Gull up in its respective plastic bag and brought back to the freezers behind the Wildlife Hospital. The freezers were in a chicken-wire wrapped double-doored corner called the “Shed Brooder,” next to three large tubs that could be filled halfway with water. In less than 6 months, the Shed Brooder would be filled with life. Starting mid-March, the first ducklings would arrive, signifying the start of the spring.
These ducklings would face many of the same problems to the Mew gull. We would rate each duckling on their feet condition daily and would delicately spray any small abrasions with aerosol antiseptic. If needed, we’d bring the ducklings into the hospital to wrap their tiny, webbed toes with antibiotic cream-smeared bandages and keep them in a separate dry enclosure until their tiny wounds healed. The ducklings would grow and heal quickly, cycling through multiple enclosures as they grew and grew through many different stages of development, different substrates with more diversity, so large wounds weren’t as common.
We kept the juvenile ducklings in the raptor pen – the largest pre-release enclosure and the same enclosure that the Mew gull was housed in, until the tips of their primary feathers just barely touched each other. The ducklings would be ready for release at that point. One at a time, we would prepare them for release, loading them five at a time in large dog crates. It would be strenuous, as they ran fast with child-like energy to evade our attempts of capture. With a towel covering the crate, they’d be loaded into the back of a waiting volunteer’s vehicle, carrying them to the release site. Each bird that was successfully rehabilitated and released, was cared for with knowledge gained by death. We learn from these experiences, of what is and isn’t possible to heal, and at what point is too far gone to save. We learn from these mistakes and successes, so more birds can be rescued, their welfare improved – if that is through rehabilitation, or if it is through the gift of death.