Animal Cruelty

[tonya]

July 11, 2006

Injured ibis wears out rescuers

By JIM HAUG
Staff Writer
HOLLY HILL -- Attention Disney, DreamWorks and all makers of animated movies about cute animals overcoming great odds.



Here's a story of an immature white ibis flying around with a 2-foot arrow poking through its upper chest.

People's cruelty to animals
The white ibis with an arrow through its body in Holly Hill is the most recent reported local example of animals injured or killed in various ways by humans.


The sight is so odd that Holly Hill resident Quinn Woodward said, "I could not believe what I was seeing. It's unbelievable."

The bird is like the feathered equivalent of Steve Martin's Wild and Crazy Guy routine when the comedian would prance around stage with an arrow sticking out both sides of his head.

Except this is no fool, having eluded the capture of well-meaning humans and hungry hawks for at least four days.

"I have captured hundreds of birds," said an exasperated Bob Hunt, a volunteer with the Bird Rescue Center in New Smyrna Beach. "You would think this would be one of the easier ones."

Michael Brothers, the manager of the Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet, said the wound must be superficial because it "flies so well."

On Monday, Hunt and partner Marilyn Camp spent all day chasing the bird from tree to tree. They threw fish on the ground to lure it down. They threw twigs to rattle it off a perch.

But the bird would either climb to a higher branch or put some distance between its pursuers by flying to the other side of a road or retention pond.

"We thought we would wear the little bird out," Camp said. "Instead, he has worn us out."

Usually, injured birds are willing to give themselves up, the volunteers said. Hunt and Camp have rescued many birds with broken wings or who have gotten tangled in fishing lure.

But this is a traumatized and very young ibis, probably born this spring because its feathers are still brown. Adult white ibises are all white.

Ibises are wading birds that hunt for small fish. The injured bird is believed to be a part of a flock that looks for dinner in the retention pond between Gladiola Avenue and Nova Road.

The injured bird was first reported on Thursday night, according to the Bird Rescue Center.

"He is one lucky bird," Camp said, because the arrow appears to have missed the vital organs and chest muscles used for flying.

From the angle of the arrow, it looks like somebody shot at the bird while it was on the ground. The arrow pierces the bird's body at a diagonal.

The arrow also looks like a target arrow, or the type shot at barrels of hay, volunteers said.

While target arrows have a pointed tip, they're not like the razor-sharp hunter's arrows, which are designed to cut flesh when it moves through the body, said Peter Frederick, an associate professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Florida.

It is not unusual for the wound to have healed by itself because wild animals have strong genes through natural selection, he said.

Ibises are also very social creatures, so it's conceivable that another ibis could peck the arrow out of its body and save the bird's life, Frederick said.

But the possibility of predators, infection and the bird's limited ability to get food does not make for a long-term prognosis, Frederick said.

Besides the Bird Rescue Center, the Marine Science Center and Holly Hill police have also tried to rescue the ibis.

Volunteers will try again today. The goal is to get it to a veterinarian who can extract the arrow and give it antibiotics and fluids.

The best way to capture a bird is to grab it by the beak, "then they're helpless," said Camp.

Volunteers said there is nothing like the rush of releasing a rescued bird back into nature.

"It's definitely a good feeling," Hunt said.

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JULY 3: A Doberman pinscher in Flagler County is found with birdshot leg wounds.

JANUARY 2005: A Samsula dog is run over by a vehicle and killed after a dispute between neighbors.

SEPTEMBER 2005: Two cows are killed, shot by arrows, in Flagler County near the Volusia line.

APRIL 2003: Ozzy the Osprey, who nested atop a light standard at Jackie Robinson Ballpark, died from injuries suffered when a former Daytona Cubs pitcher intentionally hit him with a baseball.

JANUARY 2003: A Barberville cat was killed and mutilated, with organs missing.

— Compiled by News Researcher Tom Rabeno

SOURCE: News-Journal archives

[tonya]

Bo N. Arrow is a tough little bird dodging nets and lassos. If it only knew how much we want to help it.

July 15, 2006

Ibis dubbed 'Bo N. Arrow' foils rescue attempts

By AUDREY PARENTE
Staff Writer

HOLLY HILL -- After five days of tracking an injured ibis -- dubbed by some as "Bo N. Arrow" -- bird rescuer Marilyn Camp's heart stopped Friday when she saw black vultures tugging at a grayish carcass on the edge of a retention pond near 15th Street.

She hoped it wasn't the juvenile ibis seen all week flying around with a 2-foot arrow poking through its chest. It wasn't.

"It was an armadillo," she said.

Camp and others who have spent 15- to-16-hour days tracking the elusive bird have come to admire the valiant fighter, which eluded them again Friday night.

"He's smart and just doesn't want to be caught," said Camp, who has worked with the Bird Rescue Center of Volusia County for six months.

She and long-time rescuer Bob Hunt, also from New Smyrna Beach, are working with Michael Brothers, facility manager of the Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet, to catch the bird.

They met with six other rescuers Friday at dusk on the edge of a retention pond encircled by houses and lush vegetation, where the bird roosts nightly.

There the bird was, among more than a hundred egrets, herons and a common moorehen, that Brothers identified.

Hunt and Brothers silently lowered a canoe into the water , while Yunis Abdennabi of Daytona Beach Shores came at the ibis from the other side of the pond, standing on a wall, wielding a lasso. The others stood as spotters with binoculars.

Abdennabi, a Brazilian native, learned his rope skills as a child.

"When we had nothing to rope back at the farm (in Brazil), we roped chickens," he said.

The nickname "Bo N. Arrow" came from Quinn Woodward, who lives beside one retention pond where the bird has been spotted. She has lent her yard and lawn chairs to the rescuers who met there to plan capture attempts.

"I can't tell you how wonderful the Holly Hill residents have been," Camp said. "They let us go in their yards and we had an offer to use a boat. We would have lost him, but the Holly Hill people call us."


"Marilyn and I know where he eats. He has a smorgasbord around here," Hunt said. "And he favors women. He lets them get close to him. We know his habits, where he is roosting, how high he flies and how long he is in the trees."

Dr. Paul "P.J." Lambon, veterinarian for the center, evaluated photos of the ibis and gave it a good chance of survival if the bird is caught before any infection sets in.

"I think this arrow hasn't pierced through any important organs," Lambon said. "I think it's gone through the breastbone and muscle."

The plan Friday night was to capture the bird where it roosts.

With dark approaching, Abdennabi tossed the rope, but in a rush most of the birds flapped away, including Bo N. Arrow.

As dark settled in, the birds returned, but the rescuers called it a night, and promised they will try again.

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