Subject: Shot birds at Green Lake (Seattle) update
Date: Mar 21 10:00:13 1999
From: Martin J. Muller - martinmuller at email.msn.com
Good morning tweetsters,
Early this morning (Sunday) I went out to the lake, looking for the Canada
Goose with the crossbow arrow in its breast. I was joined by Ernie and Penny
Rose. Ernie is the raptor keeper at Woodland Park Zoo, Penny is a naturalist
at Discovery Park. They are both experienced in catching wild/injured birds.
The Parks Department let me use one of their kayaks to paddle out to the
island and search it for the goose. Turned out the bird was on land near the
Bathhouse Theater. It looked alert, especially suspicious of the dipnet
Ernie was holding. I guess it was sensitized (duh) by Wednesday's
experience. We tried to corner it up against the Bathhouse Theater but it
would have nothing of it and managed to fly over Ernie (jumping with the
extended net). It flew quite well all the way across the lake to the
Community Center area, where it landed on the playfield.
Meantime, one of the few people jogging by in the drizzle, stopped just long
enough to tell us there was another bird with an arrow "just back there"
(toward the wading pool). After the goose gave us the slip we searched there
and Ernie and Penny located the American Coot along shore, feeding. I
approached over water in the kayak, and stepped on shore between the bird
and the water, with Ernie and Penny on opposite sides of the bird. The bird
tried to make at run for the water, stumbled, and was caught by Penny who
literally threw herself after the bird. This was the bird I didn't think we
would be able to catch. The crossbow arrow entered the bird on one side but
didn't stick out on the other side, although given the size of the bird and
the arrow, it must be close.
Ernie and Penny placed the coot in a box and drove to the Zoo to see if any
of the veterinarians were there, but no such luck. They met me at the
Community Center playfield where we made one more attempt at the Canada
Goose. We managed to drive it toward the backstop of the baseball diamond.
Hoping against hope the bird would walk through the opening in the fence
into the chainlink fence (8 feet high) "dugout" enclosure. Dream on. It flew
once more and we decided not to chase it anymore. We'll either have to find
someone with some kind of trapping net or play the waiting game, letting the
bird's health deteriorate to the point where we can catch it, but not so far
that it is beyond help.
This means we now have 2 of the 3 known shot birds. Personally I don't hold
out much hope for the coot. As described above, it looked more or less
"skewered." Very likely there is damage to internal organs; it has been
eating, so if the intestines are damaged one can only imagine the mess
inside the bird. Ernie and Penny are driving up to Sarvi Wildlife Center in
Arlington (as I write this), to deliver the bird there.
More to follow.
Martin Muller, Seattle
MartinMuller at email.msn.com