Tears of Joy When Heron gets a New Beak
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As we share this—our hearts are full and we are wiping away tears of joy and gratitude.
The young black-crowned night heron admitted over a month ago—near death, emaciated, missing a large portion of the upper bill and with a horrendous injury to one eye—had surgery today.
Not just any surgery, but surgery to place a prosthesis on the broken bill to hopefully allow the bird to self feed.
We have been handing minnows to the heron, placed where he can grab them from us, one at a time—up to 50 at a time every few hours for the last several weeks, but this obviously wasn’t a sustainable situation.
Dr. Chris Welch of Lake Geneva Animal Hospital and Dr. Ann Limberg of Geneva Family Dentistry visited Fellow Mortals to assess the heron and Ann carved a prosthesis from wax that her brother formed into a plastic piece.
This morning Dr. Scot Hodkiewicz and Dr. Welch and Dr. Ann—three talented, generous, and compassionate professionals—worked in surgery to help this heron.
Miraculously—when the scab was cut away from the injured eye—we could see the eye is healing and the bird is sighted!
Will the bill grow back? Possibly—time will tell; if not, this bird will find a permanent place for education about his species and about the good people do for the sake of the wild ones.
Last modified: October 12, 2019
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