Last Saturday we washed Judique, a mature bald eagle that was contaminated with an organic oil or grease. Judique is our first repeat animal at the centre. We first saw him in March of 2017 from an collision trauma and released him in July. He returned to the centre in December 2017, emaciated, suffering from lead poisoning and coated in an organic oil or grease. He spent several weeks regaining his strength so he would be strong enough to go through the wash process.
This is highly stressful for the animal. The wash went very smoothly thanks to all the volunteers involved. Once Judique is fit enough he will be moved from the nursery to he Big Jeezley where he will complete his rehabilitation for release. Today we used 26 litres of Dawn, 1500l+ of water. 3 soap washes and two rinse washes before final rinsing.
It is a lot of work to decontaminate an oiled bird. Thankfully this product was organic and not petroleum. Big thank to all our volunteers who donated their time, skills and materials to the wash. Big thank you to Wilson’s Fuels for donating the garage heater so we could do this on site. Finally a thank you to everyone who offered to help when we were looking for a portable heater to do the wash off site. So many people coming together to make all this happen. What a great community.
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