|
Updated, 5:27 p.m. | A medical rescue team, which spent Thursday observing Violet, the red-tailed hawk and new mother with an injured leg, decided not to try to take her from her nest high above Washington Square Park in order to treat her.
The wildlife specialists said that Violet was functioning well enough — and that the risks to her and her week-old hatchling were serious enough — that intervention could not be justified.
Violet, her injured leg, and her week-old baby are staying put after all.
After observing Violet on the nest up close for a full day, the team led by the state decided that she was functioning well enough, and that the possible dangers posed by intervention - both to her and the baby - were so great, that the best course of action was not to act.
"In the final analysis," said Stephen Zahn, a regional supervisor of natural resources for the State Department of Environmental Conservation, "there was not a medical imperative to intercede on behalf of the bird with such high risks to both her and the hatchling."
Elizabeth Bunting, a veterinarian specializing in wildlife from Cornell's School of Veterinary Medicine, said that while Violet was obviously having difficulty using her swollen right leg, which has a metal wildlife band stuck high on the shin, she was using it nonetheless and was still able to extend her toes.
And, crucially, she is still able to use her right foot to hold prey while she pulls it apart to feed her baby, or eyas, Dr. Bunting said. "She is compensating very well on that foot," Dr. Bunting said at a news conference in the lobby of New York University's Bobst Library building, home of the hawk nest. "She doesn't appear to have any problems feeding him."
If the specialists were to try to capture Violet on the nest, Mr. Zahn said, and she reacted aggressively, she might knock the nest off its narrow ledge; it's "a very precarious situation," he said.
Even if Violet were to be trapped away from the nest, Mr. Zahn said, she could injure herself as tried to struggle free, or while she was being held as the doctor tried to remove the metal tag.
"There's a risk at every step of the way," he said.
Dr. Bunting said that the team would continue to monitor Violet on the Hawk Cam - "We'll be able to use the webcam to have really incredible access watching this bird's progress," she said - and would not hesitate to intervene if things turned worse.
"We'll remain cautious but vigilant in observing the bird in the upcoming weeks to make sure that this hatchling will fledge," she said. Members of the rescue team will also visit the site in person, Mr. Zahn said.
Dr. Bunting was reluctant to offer a prognosis for Violet's leg. The swelling, she said, could have been caused in part by the fact that she has spent so much time lying down on the nest, and "could go down as she starts moving around - or it could progress."
John Blakeman, a hawk expert from Ohio who has been observing the situation on the nest with varying degrees of alarm, said that he was particularly encouraged Thursday to see Violet "rouse," the term for fluffing, shaking and reshuffling her feathers.
"A hawk will only rouse when at relative or complete ease and comfort," he wrote in an e-mail. "Violet is not in the state of distress most of us presumed.
"Nothing is as revealing as a good, feather-shaking rouse."
As for the baby, which has been growing quickly on a half-dozen or so meals a day and has begun wiggling its stubby wings as it tries to move about the nest, Chris Nadareski, a raptor specialist and section chief with the city's Department of Environmental Protection, said that it appeared to be doing just fine, a reflection of Violet's effectiveness as a mother.
"We can say she's doing a good job," he said.
|
Show Posts
