Remember that gull we rescued last week? After my husband took it to Native Animal Rescue here in Santa Cruz it was transferred up to International Bird Rescue‘s San Francisco Bay Area center in Fairfield. I e-mailed and asked how the gull was doing and whether I’d be able to witness its release back to the ocean. Yesterday I received this response:
Hi Allison,
This is Cheryl Reynolds, the Volunteer Coordinator for Bird Rescue. Thank you so much for rescuing the juvenile Western Gull and getting him into care at Native Animal Rescue. Hooks and fishing line can cause severe injuries but fortunately this guy is doing okay at this time. He/she had surgery yesterday to repair some of the damage the line caused to his leg and is being treated with antibiotics. He’s not totally out of the woods yet but luckily gulls are pretty tough! I’m giving you his case number here at Bird Rescue #17-1887 but I will be happy to follow up with you on his progress.
To answer your other questions.. We don’t have a timeline yet on release, it depends on how he progresses. We don’t usually send the birds back to Santa Cruz, we have so many young gulls we like to release as a group and in an appropriate location locally.
If you would like to contribute to this birds care please go to our website at https://www.bird-rescue.org/. You can also sign up to receive our Photo of the Week and patient updates and also find us on Facebook.
Thanks again for caring for this birds welfare.
Kind regards,
Cheryl
We hadn’t realized that the fishing line wrapped around the bird’s leg had caused damage that would require surgery. This makes me doubly glad that we were able to rescue it from the surface of Monterey Bay before the injuries became more severe. It sounds like the prognosis is good for this juvenile western gull, and I hope it and several of its cohort can be returned to the skies and sea very soon.