Injured Herring Gull

[RhodeIslandRed5]

Unless somebody was fishing from the airplane, I wonder how he got a fish hook in his neck and fish line tying his foot to his chest. Makes me wonder if some idiots got hold of him and 'had fun' with him.

 

[Helloworld]

That too. But no telling how long it was in there. This sounds logical to me then, someone was fishing, gull went for fish and broke line? I think it has been through way too much. A human would only make it more stressful. So sad but unfortunately between mother nature and people who lack common sense and care towards others the poor thing has endure. You don’t have any wildlife rescue people around? I did not even know there were seagulls in Montana. Or are there different types of gulls? Mmm I am gonna check that out.

 

[AmyJane725]

If you do decide to house it with your other birds for any length of time, please be aware that wild birds are wrought with parasites and disease. I wouldn't risk infecting the rest of my flock.

Sorry the prognosis is looking poor. It was very nice of you to try to help it. It sucks there aren't more rescues around who can help birds like this. I found a robin in my yard that was unable to fly for some reason. Didn't appear injured, but it only tried to run, not fly. Might have had brain damage from hitting a window or something. Not sure. Anyway, tried to find a rescue to take it and it was pretty difficult.

One other thing to think about is that for a bird that is supposed to be able to fly, it probably feels very scared not being able to fly. I don't think it can adapt to being land-bound. A bird that is supposed to be able to fly but can't is always going to feel afraid because of the limitation. Even though we know we're caring for the bird and nothing is going to come along and try to eat it, the bird doesn't know that. It just knows that it feels vulnerable all of the time. Seems like a poor quality of life to me.

 

[njschule]

Hi all, just wanted to update you on Gilley (as I named her/him). I finally came to the decision as most of you had already, that she was suffering. I splinted the wings but they were not healing. She was clearly uncomfortable not being able to fly. Until I reached that decision point, she was well fed with sardines and pea and mealworms and boiled eggs. Hopefully, not in any pain (relatively speaking, I guess). She had quite an amazing spirit though. I will not look at seagulls the same way again. Little torpedos of the air and water - like an amazing cross between a chicken, a duck and a bird of prey. Beautiful wings and determined, boy! It was likely that she hit the side of a grain truck. There are a lot of gulls on the section of road where I found her and the trucks really move fast there. She is now in my little cemetery that has too many rock markers this spring. Thank you all for telling me what I needed to hear with compassion. So Fly Gilley, Fly! [On a positive note: I am successfully nursing a chicken with a broken leg - we had a hail storm two weeks ago with tennis ball sized hail. She is just a baby (poult? - 4 months old - still pretty small) and didn't quite get out of the way or into the coop fast enough in the confusion of the storm. She has seen significant progress in recovery and is almost putting full weight back on it. I hope she can go back out with her friends next week.]

 

[njschule]

Rhode Island Red, I don't think anyone could have gotten ahold of her. She was pretty slippery even with both wings splinted and half a leg! We have a large dump here - the seagulls forage at the dump. Also there are many streams in the area where I found her. Fisherman's paradise here in Montana. The fish hook had been in her neck a long time so my guess would be that when she was younger and a little less smart about the world, she got into a tangle at the dump or flew into a branch where the fish hook was tangled.

 

[njschule]

Helloworld, There are many different seagull breeds in Montana. And because we are in the migratory path from Canada to Mexico, and I live on the Eastern side of Montana (East of the Continental Divide) with wide open wheat fields, in the spring, I see a lot of different birds. We even have pelicans!