Paws 'N Claws
News from All Things Wild Rehabilitation, Inc.
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What's in this issue:
'Til Lightning Strikes
Welcome, Dr. Emily Crews!
A Ghost for Halloween
Shadow, A Postscript
Mark Your Calendars
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'Til Lightning Strikes
The neighborhood kids had a dire warning about snapping turtles: “If a snapping turtle bites you, it won’t let go ‘til lightning strikes.” Fortunately, that’s a myth, but snapping turtles found in Texas do have strong jaws and will bite when provoked.
There are two types of snapping turtles in Texas: common snapping turtle and alligator snapping turtle. The common turtle has a smooth shell; whereas, the alligator snapping turtle’s shell has ridges, technically called scutes. See the pictures below:
Common Snapping Turtle
Alligator Snapping Turtle
In Texas the common snapping turtle is, well, common, but the alligator snapping turtle is considered threatened by Texas Parks and Wildlife.
Common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentine) live in shallow fresh water and rarely leave the water except for the females to lay eggs. They are omnivores eating fish, birds, amphibians, worms, insects, carrion, and aquatic plants. Most of the time, snapping turtles are docile and try to avoid contact with people; however, they will defend themselves when people or other animals, like dogs, mess with them. They look like a reptilian version of a football linebacker; William Perry, nicknamed The Refrigerator, comes to mind.
If you see a snapping turtle crossing the road, or any turtle for that matter, and want to help, you need to ensure that the turtle continues in the direction in which it is going. Further, in the case of snapping turtles, keep your hands in the very back of the turtle because they have a long neck and can whip around and bite you. The best way to avoid injury and help the snapping turtle would be to act as a crossing guard until the turtle has safely reached the other side of the road.
Common Snapping Turtle in rehabilitation
Recently, All Things Wild received a common snapping turtle who had been hit by a car. The shell was badly cracked and required extensive care to clean and bandage. We determined that we have a female, but there are no eggs in her. She may have been on her way back to water from laying her eggs when the car hit her. Like all the animals we receive in rehabilitation, we want her to heal so we can return her to her territory in Central Texas.
Dr. Crews sedates the turtle prior to treatment
For more information on common snapping turtles, click HERE.
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WELCOME, DR. EMILY CREWS!
Dr. Emily Crews (l) and Kaela Jones (r), Director of Animal Care,
treat the snapping turtle.
Emily Crews, DVM, has joined our staff part-time while working at a small animal clinic as well. Her great love is native and exotic wildlife. And, at All Things Wild, you never know what is coming through the door needing medical treatment and rehabilitation.
Emily grew up in The Woodlands, north of Houston. There, from the time she was a small child, she was obsessed with animals and loved to visit the vet with her horse. Growing up, she had a part-time job at an equine clinic cleaning stalls and assisting the veterinarian. As an undergraduate at Texas A&M studying animal sciences and entomology (bugs), she served an internship in zookeeping at the Houston Zoo.
While in vet school at Texas A&M, Emily served externships at Fossil Rim Wildlife Center in Glen Rose and Pedernales Veterinary Center in Fredericksburg, where, according to their web site, “all animals are seen, from small animals like dogs and cats to the exotic like Rhinos and Zebras.” She also served externships at White Oak Conservation Center and the Naples Zoo in Florida.
Lately at All Things Wild, Emily has been especially busy with the injured snapping turtle (article above); Sam, the screech owl who is healing from a broken leg; several fawns with leg injuries; and an unusual red-tailed hawk (article below). She has also been working on reorganizing the ATW medical area. We appreciate the fact that she is training the staff to be even better at caring for wild birds and animals.
Welcome, Dr. Crews, and thank you for loving wild animals as much as we do!
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Ghost, a leucistic red-tailed hawk, is in rehabilitation.
According to Wikipedia, “Leucism (/ˈluːsɪzəm, -kɪz-/) is a wide variety of conditions that result in the partial loss of pigmentation in an animal—causing white, pale, or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, feathers, scales, or cuticles, but not the eyes.”
At All Things Wild, we occasionally see leucistic squirrels. The UT campus in Austin has a population of partially white squirrels. And we had a leucistic opossum once. However, we were flabbergasted, to put it mildly, when a leucistic red-tailed hawk arrived in rehabilitation. Kind people driving by saw the hawk hit by a car and turned around to rescue him. His only injury from the car strike seems to be head trauma, although he is very thin and has overgrown talons. He obviously has not been able to hunt successfully for some time.
Ghost has some red in his tail and colored splotches on his body and wings.
We have named him Ghost since it’s the season for Halloween. Because he is white, he is more susceptible to predation since the white can be easily seen especially at night. If Ghost survives in rehabilitation and gets healthy, we will decide then whether to release him or to apply for a permit from Texas Parks and Wildlife to keep him as an ambassador so he can teach others about the wonders of wildlife.
For comparison, here's an adult red-tailed hawk with normal coloring.
To read an article about leucistic red-tailed hawks, click HERE.
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SHADOW
A POSTSCRIPT
Shadow, with a nasty wound on his back, gets nutritious
intensive care food to help him heal.
In our September newsletter, we featured Shadow, a black vulture. Shadow was free to come and go from the center; however, one day recently he returned from his adventures with a severe wound on his back. The wound consisted of a large puncture and a long scratch. Of course, we will never know what attacked him, but we suspect an animal with claws like a coyote or bobcat. Fortunately, he escaped and returned to us.
Free to fly about the building, Shadow made friends with Ozzie.
For a while, we kept Shadow in our ICU where he was fed intensive care food, the wound was treated and bandaged, and he was put on a course of pain killers and antibiotics. However, he hated being in the cage so we let him fly freely about the building where he made friends with our ambassador squirrel Ozzie.
Currently, Shadow is out in one of the large raptor enclosures where he loves to eat raw chicken legs and is continuing to heal.
Shadow continues to heal in the raptor complex.
To read the article about Shadow in our September newsletter, click HERE.
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The National Wildlife Rehabilitation Association (NWRA) will hold its annual symposium in Madison, Wisconsin, March 1-5, 2022. The plan is for this year’s event to be in person. The 2021 symposium, originally scheduled to be held in Delaware, was online due to Covid.
Early bird registration for the upcoming symposium in Wisconsin will open November 22, 2021.
We love going to the annual symposium because we learn so much about wildlife rehabilitation and get to network with rehabilitators from all over the country as well as foreign countries.
For more information, click HERE.
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