There’s no word yet on what caused three Herring Gulls that were found in the parking lot of Magic Mountain in Moncton, to become sick.
The Atlantic Wildlife Institute is currently caring for the birds, who were picked up last night.
Director of Wildlife Care Pam Novak says the Institute received several calls and messages about the birds last night, “We had a series of phone calls that came in, and Facebook messages as well. From what it appeared, people had been seeing gulls in the parking lot. When the calls started coming in, the way it was being described, was that there were six to eight gulls who were convulsing and dying or dead. When you get an incident like that, we don’t want to send out volunteers right away, and we don’t want to respond immediately in the case we are walking into a situation that is much larger. We contacted the emergency number for Environment Canada to alert them that there could be a potential situation”
They waited until the park had closed, and went out to investigate. Novak says they found three gulls.
“They were looking quite lethargic, showing neurological issues. We brought them back to the Institute and began caring for them. As of this morning they are recovering and doing much better. But we didn’t find any dead gulls,” Novak notes.
She says it is hard to determine at this point what made the gulls sick, “Whatever it was, it hit them very quickly, it appeared. We’re unsure if it was because we were able to start treating them and flushed their systems out, that helped them, or if it is something that they would have recovered from on their own, I don’t know. But it is quite odd for them to make that quick of a recovery. Our plan is to keep them here and to continue monitoring them, and see how they are progressing. We’ll work with our regulators to see what they recommend in terms of whether we release them for further care or have them sent for testing.”
“The Atlantic Wildlife Institute is a private, not for profit organization, and is volunteer based. A lot of people assume that we have to go right out, and respond to each of these instances, but we just don’t have the resources or the capability to do so. We also have to go with the guidelines on our permits that do come from our regulators, both provincial and federal. We have consulted with them, and will take what they suggest on how to proceed from here,” Novak notes.
The gulls will remain in their care, and Novak says if more sick gulls are reported, hopefully they can be picked up as well..
(Photo from Noah Donovan)
