Stop Before You Chop!

Episode 48; Mar 18, 2023

The Dodo:

Rescuers X-Ray Suspicious Log And Find Orphaned Babies Inside They heard someone calling, but they couldn’t see them … By Maeve Dunigan Published on 3/10/2023 at 6:56 PM

Huddled together, a little family cowered in fear as a harsh storm made their home come tumbling to the ground. The tree they’d been living in had snapped in half. Now that the storm had passed, a work crew was preparing to saw it to pieces. Luckily, one crew member heard someone calling from inside a log. The curious crew member grabbed the entire log and brought it to the New England Wildlife Center. Carefully, center staff moved the giant piece of tree into an X-ray machine, and their suspicions were confirmed — there were babies inside.

Miraculously, four orphaned owl chicks were alive and well inside the log. Putting the tree into the X-ray machine was an unusual move, but it paid off.

“[X-raying a log] is definitely something that I’ve never done before,” Zak Mertz, New England Wildlife Center CEO, told The Dodo. “But it worked.”

Center staff quickly got busy moving the baby owls out of the log and into the safety of the animal hospital.

The chicks spent a few days at the hospital, where veterinarians monitored them and made sure they were healthy. The babies were resilient and happy to have each other while navigating the new environment. “They’re pretty tenacious little babies, especially the screech owls,” Mertz said. “When they have each other, they have a much higher level of comfort than when they’re alone."

Center staff knew that the baby owls should be raised by other owls, so, with the help of an avian biologist, they got to work finding the owls adoptive families.

“The best thing we can do in those situations is not raise them ourselves,” Mertz said. “[We had] to find a surrogate nest, or, in this case, a couple surrogate nests.”

According to wildlife medical director Dr. Priya Patel, baby owls like these receive care and food from their mother for about the first two months of their lives before moving into a “branching” stage. During this time, owl parents watch over them as they learn to fly. It’s at this stage that many baby owls wind up on the ground. Mertz urges community members to check for owl parents before moving any baby owls they may believe to be in danger.

“If you see an owl on the ground, we always advise folks to step back, 15 to 20 minutes, and see if you see a parent in the area,” Mertz said. “And if you don't, then the best thing to do is to either call a licensed rehabilitator or call the state wildlife agency or someone that can help you catch that bird safely without interfering in the natural process or harming you or the animal.” Thanks to the quick thinking of so many animal lovers, these baby owls are safe with their surrogate families, getting a second chance at a life in the wild.

Cape Wildlife Center Facebook post May 20, 2022

Stop Before you Chop!

This is a heartbreaking story, but serves as a good reminder for all of us when we need to do tree work. We admitted this family of Eastern Screech Owls this week after the tree they were living in snapped in half and their house tumbled to the ground. Because there were already 4 chicks in the tree cavity, mom stayed with them and continued to use the hollow of the downed tree as her nest. Several days later a work crew was called in to clean up the debris and unknowingly begun chain sawing the logs into manageable pieces. Unfortunately they made a cut right where the family was nesting, and in the process accidentally hit mom with the saw. It wasn't until later when they heard the babies calling that they realized their was an owl family inside.

Unsure of their condition or what type of owls they were dealing with a couple of the crew members grabbed the log , owls and all, and brought it into our hospital. It was heavy, but with some effort we were able to get the whole thing onto our clinic where our team had the bright idea to x-ray the entire thing to see if we could get an idea of how many birds were inside. luckily the resolution was just good and we could clearly see there were five birds in the log, a mom and 4 chicks. We began to extract the family and quickly realized that mom was alive, but had sustained life-threatening injures from the saw blade and would not survive much longer. Our vet team made the difficult decision to humanely euthanize. Remarkably, the babies were unscathed and had all survived the fall and the incident without injury. We have been providing short-term care to the 4 young owls and are working with partners to find them suitable foster nests where they can be with wild owl parents and learn all of the necessary skills and behaviors they will need to take on a life in the wild.

Despite the circumstances we are grateful that the chicks are getting a second chance and we wanted to share this story because Spring time tree work is very common in New England. If you need to do some cutting this season "Stop Before You Chop" and check any knot-holes, hollows, and cavities in trees for wildlife before cutting them up. These spaces make excellent wildlife habitat and many animals, which are often referred to as cavity nesters, use them as a place to have their young. If you find a an animal in a tree that has come down feel free to give us a call and we will work to help you find a safe solution. Thank you for caring

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