On Friday, I successfully received my volunteer visa. Nothing crazy happened, only a three hour wait because there was a huge line and only one immigration officer. Because of the ridiculous wait, we were only able to stop by Belize Bird Rescue for a few minutes. They currently have a tamandua (soon to be released) that was captured in a seizure by the Forest Department. I held her for a few moments but I didn't get any pictures. Go ahead and google some images... they're really cute - anteaters with prehensile tails!
It's been a down week for the patients of CASA. Yet another difficulty with rehabilitation here is the lack of an x-ray machine. The chachalaca went into surgery on Tuesday to repair her fractured leg. There's only so much you can do with palpation on a leg with massive infection (unlike mammals, birds have solid pus so it's harder to diagnose when infection is involved). After some debriding of the infected area and assessment with her under anesthesia, it turned out that her bone was in multiple pieces and unsalvageable. Some birds can survive with only one leg but chachalacas spend a lot of time foraging in trees and doing some acrobatics in order to reach their choice nutrients. We decided it would be most humane to just let her sleep. The tern was put down today as well. He had shown no improvement in his eyes since the first few days and they need perfect eyesight in order to fish. It's hard when you've spent so much time on a patient. And the owl... oh, the owl. A victim of the lack of transportation. She's had a soft tissue injury to her intertarsal joint (the first joint above the foot), presumably from being extremely active and antsy at night; she's also injured her cere (the base of the beak). We did some rearranging and placed her in a more suitable aviary. While it's still a bit swollen, we've opted to give her a few more days and then release her ASAP so that no other injuries occur. All of the parrots were caught up on Tuesday for weights and physicals - they're all fat and happy. Well, not so much happy. They were pretty adamant about vocalizing their thoughts (cusswords, no doubt) when being handled. These guys are beautiful though. I really should have taken some pictures when when were checking out their wings. The intricacy and variation of color is amazing.
This past week wasn't too exciting. We went out to eat in San Ignacio on Saturday for Tracy's birthday. We went to an ex-pat bar afterwards and met some new people. It's a very small country, so everybody pretty much knows everybody else in the conservation circle. Tuesday was spent wielding a machete (collection of perching material) and herding a pig off of the property (who reappeared the next day and was then lassoed and taken away). Two rehabilitation volunteers from California arrived yesterday to spend the week with us at CASA. They've worked with quite a few barn owls so they've had some advice for the current situation. Anyway, they're my excuse for not writing a very in depth blog this week. Sorry! Next week I will focus on the positive and have some uplifting things to say... and post more pictures on Facebook. Oh, and we may have a baby jaguarundi staying the night tonight. The hopes are that he/she will be reunited with mom tomorrow!
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