Chapter 7

Because We Can

The job that hawks, eagles, and other diurnal raptors do during the day, owls take care of at night. Most of their diet is small rodents. While the day hunters use speed and eyesight to get their prey, owls rely on silence and acute hearing. Their wings have special feathers on the leading edge that slow their flight but baffle any noise, making them so silent that legends have long linked them to the supernatural. Their hearing is such that a great grey can slip from a perch and crash through a thick snow crust to take an unseen mouse in a tunnel. Most common in Nova Scotia is the barred owl. These owls stalk the fringes of our highways, especially in winter when scurrying food all too often distracts them from speeding vehicles.

Salty

The driver never saw what the owl was chasing. The bird itself had been nothing more than a glimpse of grey in the fraction of a second when its course intersected with that of the salt truck. It was there and then it was not. Somewhere in between was a sickening thump, followed by the tableau of a man kneeling beside a broken barred owl in the winter darkness on a Shelburne County road.

Many Names

Because its range now extends across North America and as far south as central Mexico, the barred owl has many local names. These include hoot owl, eight hooter, rain owl, wood owl, swamp owl, striped owl, round-headed owl, and in French, le chat-huant du nord.

Truck–barred owl collisions usually mean a broken wing, but not this time. The owl had no time to brace for the shock and rammed into the vehicle head first, leaving its face a mangled wreck. The upper beak was crushed, bloody, and pointing sideways, while the lower one was intact but the jaw behind it horribly smashed, causing it to be counter to the top part’s direction. The salt truck driver stared at the crumpled bird, devastated, then placed its unconscious form alongside him on the vehicle’s front seat and drove home. Once there, he began to look for help.

The next day was November 22, 2008, and things were not going well at Hope for Wildlife. Hope Swinimer and her companion, Reid Patterson, had done something bold in open defiance of the eccentric spirits who govern wildlife rehabilitation and in all foolishness actually expected to get away with it. They had scheduled a trip to the Amazon rain forest, their first vacation in many years, and of course, since this was the day they were scheduled to leave, malicious forces were busily at work. In Bedford, someone lit and closed their wood stove, only to whip it open again to remove a flaming flying squirrel. A great horned owl was reported badly injured, and staffer Nicole Payne immediately rushed to the rescue before Swinimer could begin to contemplate cancelling her trip. Now there came the call from Shelburne about a barred owl whose face was destroyed in a one-sided duel with a salt truck. While these were being dealt with, two more calls came in. It took a major effort to convince Swinimer the situation was under control and that she could, with a clear conscience, get on the plane.

Many of the animals Hope for Wildlife gathered that day had very serious injuries, so while Swinimer sped south for her vacation, her workers were arriving at the Dartmouth Veterinary Hospital looking for Dr. Barry MacEachern. Payne was there, holding her rescued great horned while it was euthanized. Its wing had been shattered in several places and was not repairable. While there, she met the South Shore owl that became known as Salty, and which would dominate her time for most of the next year.

Despite injuries so severe and repair work so delicate that recovery seemed to verge on the impossible, Dr. MacEachern decided to attempt making Salty capable of not only living but also being wild again. When she returned from her Amazon adventure, Swinimer immediately understood how unusual and intricate the task MacEachern had undertaken was going to be.

“Looking at that bird, I’ll bet ninety-nine point nine per cent of veterinarians would have euthanized on the spot. His whole beak was smashed and he was in pretty bad shape,” she commented.

Payne had been directly involved from the beginning and saw MacEachern’s decision as an important milestone for the young doctor, who had enough confidence in his skills to go beyond expectations and take risks.

“If it had been a year earlier, Salty probably would have been just euthanized immediately,” she explained. “The difference was Barry getting more familiar with raptor physiology and veterinary care. He just decided to go for it and give it a try, and he got it right.”

The fact that Salty was a barred owl made the situation more sensitive. Most raptors live by their talons. These powerful feet enable them to hunt and kill successfully. Their beaks are secondary tools, used mainly for ripping larger prey into chunks that can be swallowed. A barred owl is different. Its power is almost evenly distributed between beak and talons, creating a hunting package in which the feet are slightly weaker than those of many other raptors but the beak much stronger. There are claims that a barred owl’s beak can crack a turtle’s shell, making it far more than simply a dining instrument. Carried along by silent wings with a span of up to 126 centimetres, the result is a very effective night hunter. It was obvious to anyone who knew owls that to succeed, MacEachern’s repairs on Salty could be nothing less than perfect.

The decision by the veterinarian to attempt the surgery was not made without careful consideration of the larger picture of Salty’s health. MacEachern knew it would be a long-term project, but the crucial period was quite short, and after that it was just going to be a matter of continual tinkering and adjustment.

“With that particular case, because nothing else was wrong with the owl, I felt it was worth giving it a try. We’d know within a few weeks to a month if it was going to work. Once we knew the bill was growing out, it was just going to be a toying thing,” MacEachern said.

The lower jaw, or mandible, was the first problem. It was broken in two places on the same side. This required very careful setting if the beak was to work smoothly and accurately again. If the upper beak regrew, its lower partner had to be in precise position to meet it, and the mandible would have to be set immediately for it to do so, even though it would be months before the top section’s final position was known. The broken mandible was set together with a pin, but that was only the beginning. In order to heal properly, it had to be kept from moving, so surgical wiring was used to support the pinning, and that in turn had to be stabilized.

“There were wires there almost like braces, and just so it wasn’t disturbed, we taped the mouth shut so that it could only open about half a centimetre,” explained MacEachern.

The problem with the upper bill was completely different, for the damage was not to the bone but to the bill itself. A raptor’s bill is made of keratin, the same substance as human fingernails and toenails, and although much thicker, is subject to the same type of injuries. In Salty’s case, the bill had been destroyed. The first half-inch was completely gone, and the rest was heavily damaged right up and into the growing point under the feathers. This included a split that went almost to the root of the bill, and as with a human nail, the only thing to do was to cut away the damaged material and hope it grew back.

“I trimmed most of that off because a lot of it was dying,” MacEachern said. The crack was the major concern, according to the doctor, “but I didn’t think it went all the way to the growing portion of the bill, so that’s why we gave it a chance.”

To be certain only undamaged material survived, the upper bill was sanded back to almost nothing.

Raptor specialist Nicole Payne handles an injured barred owl. Note how the heavy towel prevents the wings from moving, while her hands inside the towel wrap control the talons.

“We used a Dremel drill, and as it grew, we just filed it into a normal bill shape. If we hadn’t, because the lower bill was fully grown and the normal shape, the upper probably would have hit it at some point and grown into an abnormal position since all the points weren’t coming together at the same time,” explained MacEachern.

At three weeks, x-rays showed the lower jaw was healing, and at six, the tape, wires, and pins were removed. Salty’s mandible was declared healed and now the long wait began while a new upper beak slowly grew and was shaped. The work done by Dr. MacEachern so far appeared perfect, and it was now just a matter of watching to see if the two halves would come together and function. The owl was taken to Hope for Wildlife on New Year’s Day to start rehabilitation work, and the staff there celebrated his arrival, especially Nicole Payne. Actually, Payne’s celebration was more about going than arriving. All through the surgery and healing of his jaw, Salty had been camping in the laundry room of her father’s Cole Harbour home, right next door to her bedroom. It was her job to feed an owl whose jaw was pinned, wired, and taped shut, at the same time making certain nothing touched or otherwise disturbed Dr. MacEachern’s handiwork. With Swinimer away, Payne knew of no other way to keep the bird safe except to have him as a house guest.

Because it is very shortsighted, an owl needs specialized touch-sensitive feathers in order to eat.

“I was one of only two people on staff at the time familiar with even handling a raptor, let alone feeding it,” Payne said. “It was about six weeks of constant nursing three times per day at my home. He stayed in the room next to mine, and I would get up in the middle of the night and go feed him.”

Feathers that Feel

Owls may have tremendous night vision, but once they catch their prey, they can’t see it. They are extremely nearsighted. However, they have an unusual ability that allows them to handle food. Their talons and beaks have very sensitive hair-like feathers called filoplumes that act as feelers. Instead of seeing what they eat, they feel it.

Salty’s menu consisted of only one thing: a recovery cat food formula given to felines coming off major surgery. It stank like rotten fish in its solid state, but Payne had to mix it with warm water, mash it to a liquid, suck it into a large syringe, insert a metal tube down the bird’s throat, and inject the lot into his stomach three times each day without aspirating him. The stench sickened her, but Salty loved the stuff and soon started demanding it.

Feeding the owl was difficult at first, especially in the middle of the night when he was naturally awake and Payne asleep. Because he was fully alert then, Payne included his medications during this feeding, grinding up pills to a fine powder and serving them mixed into the vile food he was so fond of. Getting the feeding tube around the surgery and down his throat posed the biggest problem.

“At first it was difficult,” Payne said. “I’d have to hold his head without hurting the jaw, which was hard because part of the wiring went right up to the corner where the mandible joins the skull. When we have a raptor for feeding, we often hold them in those joints and force their mouth open, but I couldn’t do that, so I’d try to hold the back of his head, without touching that joint. Then I’d gently tip his head back so he’d try to open his mouth to protest, and I’d slide the tube down, trying to feed him in a swift, fluid motion, without also having it go down into his lungs.”

Once the hardware was off, Payne was responsible for getting the owl back on solid food so he could be penned at Hope for Wildlife’s Seaforth facility. She started him with meat pieces he could swallow whole without ripping or tearing with the damaged bill. Payne thought she was giving him a treat when she bought pre-cut stir-fry meats for him.

A barred owl’s dark brown eyes give it a less aggressive appearance. It is the only owl in this part of the world with brown eyes.

“He did not want anything to do with it. He wanted his cat food. It was like trying to force a three year old to eat his vegetables,” she remembered. “He’d clamp up his beak and just keep turning it up and away, as if he was saying ‘No, no, I don’t want it. I’m not going to eat that.’ By the end of feeding him that vile cat food, it was as easy as opening up the box and he’d be ready, waiting for it. But once the meat came, it was like starting over again.”

Fear and Worship

From the beginning of human history, owls were feared and worshipped, and words connected to them found their way into English in many strange ways. For example, the Icelandic word for owl is ugla, which gave another word to that language, uggligr. This became the Scandinavian ugly, which came to English in the Middle Ages. Actually, the Icelandic uggligr shows perfectly the ancient connection to owl mythology and worship. It means “something to be feared.”

Salty continued to hold out for cat food even when he was moved back to Seaforth. Because it was the middle of the winter and he had spent a month and a half indoors, he was penned with a heat lamp along with his food and water, but he still refused to eat. Even mice could not tempt him. It was Reid Patterson who made the breakthrough. He had caught smelts and put some live ones in Salty’s pen, which ended the food strike immediately. As soon as a smelt started flopping, he was on them and the cat food was forgotten.

It was September before the bill crisis worked itself out. Dr. MacEachern kept the top section filed flat as it grew so it would not deform itself against the lower bill. Once it passed the tip of the mature segment, its natural hook was allowed to develop and, to everyone’s delight, the sections came together perfectly. MacEachern’s work had created a new and functioning tool for Salty, one that would let him have his life in the wild back again.

It was on a September evening when Payne and a few others dropped in to visit Dr. MacEachern where he was camped at Porter’s Lake Provincial Park. Payne had a cardboard box with her and in it was Salty.

Salty up close, his damaged beak starting to heal.

“We found Barry’s campsite and it was good and dark by that time,” said Payne. “Everyone gathered around. I took Salty out of his box, tucked him under my arm, and he behaved nicely, allowing Barry and I to pet and say goodbye to him. Then I just gave him a little toss and he flew right up into a tree. He stayed there for a little bit, scoped things out, then off he went into the night.”

There were many at Hope for Wildlife and in the veterinary profession who were impressed with how Salty’s story ended. Dr. MacEachern’s remarkable surgery and Nicole Payne’s dedicated care had saved a bird so badly injured that in any other time or place he would likely have been immediately euthanized.

It should always be remembered that Salty was not a pet but a wild, ownerless bird. There was no one to pay for the services he received. Certainly there was no guarantee that once set loose, he would have any more luck surviving than other creatures living by the laws of the forest. Salty may have flown only a few hundred metres that night and been killed by a great horned owl. Or he may have headed for the nearest highway and flown into another truck. None of that matters.

What does matter is that two people saw a wild creature with its life in jeopardy, thought they could help it, and were willing to try.