One of our resident Black Eagles who originally came to us from Umgeni Bird Park in Durban, where she was used for shows turned aggressive as she is human imprinted. She has been our ambassador for Black Eagles since then. We brought her into the clinic as her left eye was closed and seemed to be bothering her. On expecting it, we found a cloudy spot. No one could help us as to the cause of this and the vet suggested we use eye ointment “I see” in her eye 4 times a day. She is now fine and back in her enclosure!
One often wonders how many animals and birds, are out there that are injured due to our ignorance that we do not know of. This can be through power lines, fences, cars, poisons, gin-traps and snares. These creatures are totally helpless unless man steps in and that is what rehabilitation centers are about, doing what we can. We received a call from our local vet at Provet that a Spotted Eagle Owl had been brought into them which they suspect was hit by a car. It had a severe concussion, very skinny and its left pupil had been ruptured. We brought it back to the center and is now being kept in the clinic as it has eye drops (Maxitrol) in its left eye once a day. We hope to give you a positive report on its outcome at a later date.
2 Spotted Eagle Owls and a Wood Owl were hands raised by different people and brought to us to eventually be released back to the wild. In the months they were with us, we fed them on their natural prey items such as mice and rats. The time came to release these birds and we called in Andre Botha from the Endangered Wildlife Trust to tag the birds. They were ringed on their one leg which has a number that records all the details of the bird. This is for the purpose that should someone pick it up or for that matter notice it in the wilds they can notify the bird ringing center Safring and let them know what they found. This will tell us how far they have moved from their releasing spot and also give us an idea on how long they managed to survive. This is always great excitement for us when we receive feedback. Volunteers Katie Hobson a vet student from England assisted in this wonderful moment.
This is an example of a bird being ringed and found. This Thick Billed Weaver was found in our yard with a ring on its leg. We sent the ring number to Safring (They keep a record of all ringed birds in South Africa.) They told us that it was ringed 22yrs ago as an adult in Lydenburg, which means it traveled approximately a 130km to us. It would make the bird 24 years old in total which is a long time for a small bird.
And now on a happier note!! Rentia a Honey Badger enthusiast donated a second jungle gym with a slide for our honey badgers, this time for Julius and Rika’s enclosure. Once the staff built the jungle gym we let Julius and Rika in…..there is, of course, no hesitation on their part to explore anything new!! You can imagine putting a film on fast speed as these two investigated every nook and cranny, sniffing and climbing trying to figure how this all worked out…and once they were done they tore it all apart as you can see by the photo!! They totally destroyed the tyre section and dug a hole at the bottom of the slide, maybe there was an escape route somewhere!!! Who cannot love them for their daring escapades!
PS do put on your loudspeakers when you watch the short video footage ☺