Tom Sweets, executive director of the Key West Wildlife Center, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the organization.
Rescues and rehabilitation are what Key West Wildlife Center is all about and they have a new facility in which to help animals.
Sweets said, “We appreciate the community. They actually donated and allowed us to build our new clinic building facility and to totally renovate our wild bird aviary. So we have a great space to heal sick and injured wildlife, and we also have a place where they can get a workout, flying some test flights, and get their flight muscles strong out in our aviary and our little flight enclosure. So, yes, we really couldn’t have done it without the community that we serve from mile marker zero to 31 and we appreciate all of their support in helping us get that project done.”
Despite the rumors on social media, the Key West chickens are not in peril.
Sweets said, “Our main focus is wild birds, rescuing sick and injured wild birds. We do that through community donations, through private donations. Now the city of Key West does fund another side of the business, which is the Key West chickens and really all we do there is we will rescue sick and injured Key West chickens in the city of Key West, that’s the only place we operate for these chickens. Then what we do is provide care to them. We don’t do any trapping. We don’t have traps for people to borrow. We accept birds through our concession agreement with the city. So anyone that would bring a chicken to the Key West Wildlife Center, whether it’s sick or injured or whether it’s a bird that they have trapped, we will accept them at our gate. We will provide them care, and then we will find them good homes, and we do not return them to the streets of Key West. They go to good homes. We have a couple of big properties that we work with, Pete Marsh Ranch just outside of Okeechobee, the conch farm just outside of Fort Myers. Over the years, I mean, this program really predates myself being director of the Key West Wildlife Center. This was put in place before 2009 and we’ve really strived to sort of live by our concession agreement, which, again, we do not do any trapping. We get a lot of calls with people asking us to come and trap their chickens, and that’s not something that we do, but we will accept birds that are brought to the center, and we provide care, and then we get them homes at these great properties that we partner with up on the mainland, and they are not going back to the streets of Key West.”
There have been a number of rescues recently at Key West Wildlife Center.
Sweets said, “The Key West yacht club called us. It was about a month ago, about a great blue heron that was down on their property, and they were all very concerned, because they know this heron. He hangs out at their yacht club every day. So we went and made the rescue, and the bird was on the ground. He could not stand. It was botulism, which we do get birds affected by, not just chickens. There are wild birds that can be affected by it too. It can be number of things. It could be something that the bird ate. It could be some type of water quality issue that the bird got into, but botulism basically paralyzes the birds slowly, and if they don’t get over it, if it’s a bad strain, or they can’t recover, then they will die. So we got this bird very quickly, though, because the people at the Yacht Club keep an eye on this heron, and we got the bird into care. Our wild bird care director, she actually really nursed this bird back to health. He took a long time. It’s a tough disease for them to get over. But we basically flush the system with fluids and get the bacteria. It’s a bacteria that causes this whole thing. So we flush the bacteria from the system, and really, depending on how bad the strain of botulism that the bird got was, and how quickly we got the bird, that really depends on the outcome. This was a really good outcome. The bird could not stand upon admittance to our clinic and then, as we worked with the bird, in fact, that new clinic that you were just talking about, we were able to put our new little hydrotherapy room into effect. It’s got a pool in there, therapy pool, so the bird could not stand, but we worked in the pool because that will take the weight off the body and the legs can actually start to move again. So slowly, we got the bird back in shape, and we were able to actually release it two days ago back at the Key West Yacht Club. So that was a great outcome, and we’re always happy to respond to wildlife in Key West.”
Another bird was also rescued.
Sweets said, “It’s a perfect example of we love our community. We love working with our community to get sick and injured wildlife rescued. This was a charter boat that had found the magnificent frigate bird floating in the water. He had a fishing line entanglement that was keeping him from being able to fly, so he was down in the water. They brought him into Key West on their boat, and we were able to get the bird into care. Thankfully, again, it was a timing thing, because the bird had not been in this situation for very long so there weren’t any major injuries. Just the bird had been down in the sea water, we were able to get the bird dried out. The frigate bird was treated for a short period and then put into our new flight cage, again, thanks to the community’s donations, that bird was able to work out in the flight cage, get its flight chops back up to the level it needed to be, and we were able to release that bird last Saturday over on Higgs Beach, right into the wind. So another great rehab job from our medical side, and another great response from the community looking out for wildlife and distress that they come across.”
A Lou Osprey needed rescue recently, too.
Sweets said, “We have actually two Osprey in care right now. One of them is a youngster that was a fledgling that was down at the Coast Guard base. He was a young bird, but just something wasn’t right. We think he may have had an impact, a lot of times when birds are learning to fly, they don’t exactly have the skills yet. We think he may have had an impact, or he could have been struck by a vehicle. So we took that bird into care. Then we have also the rescue of an older Osprey up on Big Coppitt. His feather condition was poor. Something, again, wasn’t right. There were no telltale injuries, but something was going on with this bird. He may have had some type of sickness, or he just wasn’t grooming the feathers, which is very important for a bird to keep itself waterproofed and to keep itself healthy. So we had that bird in care, and we were working with both of them, and now they are both just about ready to go. They’re both making flights in our wild bird aviary flight cage, so it won’t be long before we get the two Ospreys returned to the wild.”
This is the season of the baby bird. What should people do if they find one?
Sweets said, “In the springtime, when the birds nest and the babies are hatched, at some point, they get old enough and they will leave the nest on their own. Now that’s very different from, let’s say if we have a storm or something, high winds that blow through, and then baby birds get knocked out of the nest prematurely. There is a way to tell, if the birds are feathered and fully feathered, then they have probably fledged. So what we usually do is we ask people to take a picture for us if they find a bird on the ground, and then we can sort of figure out how old the bird is, whether he’s fledged or, if he’s still too young to be out of the nest. Then we can go from there. So there is a period when a bird fledges, where they’re going to spend time on the ground. The doves and pigeons are just going to sit there. Their job is to be camouflaged while the parents are off gathering food, and then the parents come back and find them, and then feed them once or twice a day, that’s the doves and the pigeons. They’re not going to be moving very much. The songbirds, the northern mockingbirds, the grackles, they are going to be making a lot of noise and hopping around on the ground. They sort of move around, hopping and again, the parents of the songbirds are usually close by all the time. They’re hunting for bugs and bringing them right to the youngsters and feeding them. So all of these birds will spend a period of time on the ground. I think a lot of people see young birds on the ground and they think that something has gone wrong, or something terrible has happened, or they’ve fallen from the nest. Well, they haven’t fallen they’ve actually left the nest. The reason they do that is really in the wild, once the birds are developed to a point it’s safer for them to be out of the nest, just because of predators will be looking for nests and looking for young. So if they can get out of the nest and hide on the ground, they have a better chance of getting away from the predators that might stalk them in the trees. There’s always risks involved. We do have cats, we do have dogs, we do have other animals that might interfere with these birds, but for the most part, they all have to go through this stage. It usually lasts three days to five days before they’re taking flights on their own. It’s a stage that all birds have to go through. The easiest thing is, if somebody has a question about a bird, just give us a call, and then we can sort of determine, most times the babies can be left on the ground, the last resort we ever really want to do is take a baby bird away from the parents. Sometimes, there are reasons why this has to happen, but we really want to try to keep that to a minimum and have it be a last resort. We do want to give a shout out to all the other organizations in the Keys that are doing rescues and providing care. Our number 24/7, for rescues is 305-292-1008. We’re open four days a week now. It’s Friday until Monday, 10am until 4pm. We’re very happy to be able to do that. We will be extending our hours, but right now, you certainly can come by today from 10 until four and tour the grounds and the wonderful Indigenous Park. We are very happy to be open again to the public.”
For more information, click here: https://keywestwildlifecenter.org/