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Birds, Hunters, and Lead

10,000 Birds

There are few sights more wrenching to a wildlife rehabilitator than a convulsing, lead-poisoned bird. In what some might see as an unlikely alliance, wildlife rehabilitators, veterinarians, and – yes – hunters have banded together to convince those who hunt to use copper bullets instead of lead.

Hunters 176
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Can Nature Take Care of Itself?

10,000 Birds

My work as a wildlife rehabilitator over the past forty-five years has allowed me a unique perspective on a disturbing trend. Consider this: ninety percent of birds treated at wildlife centers are admitted as a result of human interactions that have nothing to do with “nature.”

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Outdoor/Feral Cat Problem? Call the SWAT Team

10,000 Birds

Neighbor B tells her that his cats wouldn’t be happy indoors, that cats’ hunting is “natural,” and that he has no intention of keeping his cats inside. Enough hand-wringing, enough taking butchered birds to exhausted, emotionally drained wildlife rehabilitators. Neighbor A asks neighbor B to contain his cats.

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The Medicine Bird

10,000 Birds

“I’ve seen her around, when I was setting my traps,” said the trapper himself, who brought her to Tamarack Wildlife Center , in Saegertown, PA. This is why certain wildlife rehabilitators end up misanthropic and homicidal. Birds Albino leghold traps leucistic Red-tailed Hawk wildlife rehabilitators'

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Peregrine Falcons at the National Wildlife Refuges

10,000 Birds

Peregrine Falcon at Delevan National Wildlife Refuge. BBC Nature has a really cool video of the Peregrine hunting a pigeon in a stoop. Although Peregrines are famous for hunting birds from above by stooping down on them, they use several other means of attaining prey and are most active at dawn and dusk. Don’t miss it!

Falcons 133
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Trumpeter Swans: Don’t Shoot Them

10,000 Birds

They were heavily hunted as food, and for the feathers. This morning’s news had this: During this year’s open of waterfowl season, the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center admitted more trumpeter swans for bullet wounds than ever before. Birds Conservation Cygnus buccinator hunting Minnesota Trumpeter Swan'

Minnesota 206
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Crazy Flickers

10,000 Birds

who can be found regularly at the bird and wildlife blog Birdland West. I didn’t know much about Flickers until I started volunteering at a wildlife rehabilitation center a couple of years ago. My first close up encounter with a Flicker was at the wildlife center. Last time, Alex asked us to Consider the Chickadee.