One by One

Constance Perenyi

Constance Perenyi has written and illustrated two children s books, Growing Wild: Inviting Wildlife into Your Back Yard (Beyond Words, 1991) and Wild Wild West (Sasquatch Books, 1993). In addition to her ongoing volunteer commitment at oil-spill clinics, she has worked for two years at HOWL Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic near Seattle. Constance’s experiences with wildlife reinforce for her the importance of preserving habitat, be it an old tree in a city park or a pristine mountain meadow. "One by One” originally appeared in Living Bud, the quarterly publication of Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology.

It wasn’t until I worked at an emergency oil-spill clinic that I stopped observing animals at a distance. Surrounded by injured birds, I could not separate myself from their vulnerability. I was sickened by the oil on their feathers, evidence of human insensitivity to the environment. At the same time, I was heartened by the actions of my fellow volunteers. Once stat) agencies or local wildlife rehabilitation experts set up a clinic, it is prima ily the volunteers who keep it afloat by donating supplies and energy. Most volunteers hear about an accident on news broadcasts and decide to help for a few hours, days, or weeks. Many arrive without animal-handling skills, but all come with a commitment to learn.

Looking back at three clinics I’ve worked at, I recall different lesson from each. My first clinic, in a gymnasium thirty-nine miles north of I Seattle, seemed like an adventure—a chance to practice what I had learned as a keeper’s aide in the waterfowl unit at the Seattle Zoo. Because I had pertinent training, or thought I did, the coordinator asked me to force feed a group of buffleheads and goldeneyes. They were small birds, I ha small hands, so it seemed logical.

I immediately realized how unprepared I was to pick up a wild creature. I reminded myself that no one, not even a veterinarian or professional trainer, knew instinctively how to handle animals. These skills are learned. After several hesitant attempts, I grabbed a bufflehead, pried open its beak, and pushed a dab of moistened food down its throat with little finger. I worked to perfect my technique, trying to move quickly without further stressing the bewildered birds. To this day, I smile when I think of those dozens of tiny duck tongues.

In contrast to the pleasant memories of that first spill, my memory of the most recent one is colored by desperation. Two days before Christmas '88, a tugboat rammed a tanker near Gray 's Harbor, southwest of Seattle. Oil soon spread south to Oregon and north to British Columbia. Officials initially underestimated the gravity of the worst accident in Washington history, and they were reluctant to enlist aid. First asking for help only from experienced volunteers, the Washington Department of Ecology later enlisted less-experienced people who traveled from as far away as California and Canada to help.

By the time the first wave of volunteers arrived, three critical days had passed. Inadequate supplies of hot water at a temporary clinic hampered washing efforts. Some of the rarer birds, such as a rhinoceros auklet and a few loons, were washed immediately after recovery from the beach, but hundreds of common murres, pigeon guillemots, western grebes, and various scoters sat in oil for nearly a week. As the birds I anxiously preened, they swallowed the toxic oil coating their feathers. Each day without a clinic bath lessened their already slim chances of survival

I joined other volunteers trying to keep the unwashed birds fed and hydrated until we could move them to better facilities. Exhausted after my first day at the clinic, I checked into the motel, tried to rest, and awoke abruptly. I looked around the room and thought I saw shadows of murres and guillemots on the floor. They broke in dark waves against the bed, vanishing every time I reached out. I forced myself to go back to sleep, and then dreamed about a small white-winged scoter I had held during the day. Unlike the other birds, this one was quiet. I stared at the soiled feathers on her back and sheltered her head with my hand. As I rocked her, her heartbeat weakened and I repeated, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.” For weeks afterward, I fought to rid myself of this nightmare and often woke in tears.

Time has passed. The dreams have faded, but not the scars on my hands. These commemorate the feisty energy of the murres and my often unsuccessful attempts to catch them without getting caught first. Jousting with one after another, I learned to respect their tenacity. Even weak birds could be formidable. During my final days at Gray's Harbor, I overheard a coordinator instructing new recruits in the art of handling western grebes. He believed the longer-necked, sharply beaked species to be the most dangerous and difficult to control.

“Just be grateful we don’t have any cormorants, ’’ he concluded. “They're the worst."

On the dawn of another Christmas, in 1985,1 took a ferry from Seattle to the Olympic Peninsula and signed the volunteer roster in Port Angeles, where a spill had just occurred. All morning I prepared birds to be washed. Before the first rinse, each bird received preliminary veterinary care: antibiotic injections, protective salve for its eyes, and a careful beak swabbing to remove residual oil from its mouth. Then the tedious scrubbing process began, with volunteers carrying birds back and forth from sudsy washtubs to the showers until every feather was rinsed clean.

Volunteers at emergency spill clinics are generally divided into two groups: feeders who work with clean birds and washers who are confined to the locker rooms. The people with the oiliest clothes work with the dirtiest birds and pass them on to cleaner volunteers as the washing progresses. At Port Angeles, I started with dirty birds; by noon sticky oil had chewed holes through my rubberized overalls. Here was proof of the corrosive properties of petrochemicals. While I could not see the oil's longterm effect inside the birds, I knew the oil on their feathers was deadly. Unwashed, these creatures were helpless—they could not fly, they could not float, they could not stay warm.

I, at least, could take off my useless overalls. Once I had peeled to a cleaner layer, the washroom coordinator handed me a double-crested cormorant that had been de-oiled. My task was specific: to clean each feathers on its head with a water-pik. For hours I sat on a folding chair with a bird balanced between my legs and the pik humming on a table next to us. With one hand, I supported the cormorant’s neck. With the other, I focused the water and combed the feathers in short methodical strokes.

I began the process cautiously, watching the bird while it noted every move. Earlier, a veterinary technician had closed its sharp beak the bird could not bite or spear its handlers. But when the cormorant began to blow bubbles through its elongated nostrils, I removed the band. It instantly relaxed and seemed more curious than dangerous.

At once I realized that this was an extraordinary opportunity. I handled captive birds at the zoo, and wild ones at other clinics, but I had never examined one so closely. I had relied on mounted specimens photographs for details. I had filled my head with facts and could, example, recite the range of avian body temperature. But until that day, the figures had remained abstract. As I sensed the cormorant s damp body heat radiating through my clothes, I experienced warm-bloodedness it new way. The bird and I exchanged body heat everywhere we touched. I could feel impressions of webbed feet on my legs and feather marks along the inside of my arms.

Unlike others around us, this bird appeared healthy and unafraid, it looked around the room, the cormorant seemed to watch the day unafraid. As a spectacle rather than a trauma. It was calm and seemed willing cooperate, which enabled me to consider every feather tract I cleaned. The more I contemplated the depth of its blackness, the more detail I perceived. Points of turquoise outlined pale green eyes. Burnt-orange skin marked the birds throat in colorful, featherless contrast. Against my skin its snaky neck and armored feet felt reptilian. I could even feel its small flexible gular pouch.

As the afternoon unfolded, the bird became my sole focus. Earlier t the day, I had yielded to every distraction, watching other people, even checking the clock. But as I worked with the cormorant, I became oblivious to the hectic activity around us. I shut out the noise to concentrate on my task, and soon it seemed as if the bird and I were the only being in the room.

Outside, a few miles down the beach, state ecologists surveyed the oil slick and assessed its impact on a large population of over-wintering bird. None of us could reverse the damage, but I knew that by working on the problem at its most elemental level, I had found a way to make amends with a single bird.

For five hours I had enjoyed the company of another creature and I regretted ending our time together. Reluctantly, I lowered the cormorant into a pool with other birds. This was the final test: if it could float, its leathers were oil free. The bird swam off and the washroom volunteers cheered. The cormorant looked strong, and after it regained energy and natural oils, other volunteers would release it on a clean shoreline miles from where it had been found.

Release was weeks away, and I realized I would never know this cormorant’s fate. The mortality rate of animals rescued from oil spills is depressingly high. Even if they outlive capture and cleaning, many later succumb to lethal doses of ingested oil. And of those released, few remain capable of reproduction. On that day, I did not dwell on the statistics. I like to think that the cormorant is alive. If a bird can be said to express a will to live, this one seemed to do so.

It is the hope of saving even a few animals that motivates volunteers at an oil-spill clinic. Confronted by death, we work hard to preserve life. We do what we can and in the process we are changed. Like other volunteers, I have returned home with a stronger commitment to conservation and a new appreciation of life. In the end, I realize my efforts with the birds have helped me more than I could ever hope to help the birds.