We received 109 birds in one day. How to save them?

Our Hongshan: Secrets in the Zoo

Wildlife rescue

In Hongshan, behind the confidence and radiance displayed by the animals lie many little-known and touching stories. The documentary series "Our Hongshan: Secrets in the Zoo" starts from the protagonists of each story and once again presents their thoughts and insights on the way forward.

The second episode turns the camera to the Wildlife Rescue Center, which is a beacon of hope for many injured and sick animals. Hongshan's wildlife rescue work is an important manifestation of the social responsibility of modern zoos. Starting with a phone call late at night, the story full of tension and expectation unfolds one by one.

One night in late June, looking from the security booth at the north gate of Hongshan toward the main road in the park, a car light appeared on the slope at the end of the bend, slowly getting bigger and dazzling. It was a working car of the Wildlife Shelter and Rescue Center. Zou Liyuan, a keeper at the rescue center, rushed over after receiving a call from the security guard, unpacked the box, inspected it, and signed for it.

After three months, the bound "Hongshan Forest Zoo Rescue Animal Record" has become a thick book. The latest memo reads: A little bird was injured, kind-hearted citizens.

In the chick season, the maximum number of birds received in one day was 109 ------------------------

April to July every year is the peak breeding season for birds, which also means the busiest "chicken season" for the breeders at the rescue center. During this period, the rescue center often receives a large number of chicks and eggs, with the most received in one day being 109. The entire "chicken kindergarten" is filled with bird cages and baby boxes, and the sounds of various birds are everywhere.

There was a blackbird chick shivering slightly in the baby box. It originally lived in a nest on the side branch of a big tree. In the spring, gardeners cut off the branches when pruning trees, and the bird's nest collapsed. The chicks in the same nest died soon after they were brought in, and it was the only one that survived.

Every year there are many cases of young birds leaving their nests or adult birds abandoning their nests due to tree management. Many of the young birds received by the rescue center come from this.

When chicks leave their parents, they need more sophisticated rearing conditions to survive. Each bird and each individual has different conditions and needs at each stage, so breeders can only rely on experience gained to simulate the rearing conditions of the parent birds.

Chen Yuelong, the director of the rescue center, has to adjust the temperature and humidity of the baby boxes for the chicks every day, and prepare food according to species, age and status. Some are fed larvae, some are fed loaches, and liquid food is the most complicated: the nutrition, ratio and viscosity all have to be adjusted. He uses a syringe to pump liquid food to feed the birds, and the chicks open their mouths, flap their wings, and stick their heads out to call. After one round of feeding, he repeats it two or three times, and then feeds the next nest until all the birds are fed.

The diet should be changed according to the growth of the species. For example, when the gray-headed lapwing grows to a certain size, several types of shrimp should be added to ensure an ideal calcium-phosphorus ratio, otherwise problems will easily arise in leg growth.

Bird eggs picked up by mistake

Raised in the baby box are two grey-headed lapwings, which were hatched in a constant temperature water bed at the rescue center.

There were too many bird eggs delivered during the breeding season, and the incubators were not enough. When the new equipment had not yet been delivered, the breeders made a simple constant temperature water bed as an emergency measure. They found a foam box, put a temperature-controlled heating plate underneath, and put water in a sealed bag on top. The temperature was set to 37.8 degrees. The heating pad would work when the temperature in the box dropped by 0.1 degrees, and stop heating when it was higher than 0.1 degrees.

There are lapwing eggs, as well as eggs from spotted-headed owl, silver-throated long-tailed tit, red-headed long-tailed tit and other birds in the constant temperature water bed. Most of them were picked up by citizens by mistake and sent here.

Mistaken picking is common. For example, the gray-headed lapwing often breeds in wasteland near water. The protective color of its eggshell is like stone, which is easy to camouflage, but it is also easy to be picked up by mistake. When incubating eggs, the parent birds will fly out to divert attention when they see people approaching, and then return after the people leave.

Some citizens do not understand the habits of lapwings and think that the parent birds have abandoned the nest, so they pick up the eggs and take them home to incubate or send them to rescue centers; some people use macro lenses to get close to the eggs in order to take pictures, and when the parent birds see this, they think that the nest has been disturbed by humans, so they abandon the nest.

If you encounter bird eggs in the wild, the best thing to do is not to approach them or pick them up.

In principle, bird eggs are not within the scope of wildlife rescue. However, faced with these potential lives, the keepers could not ignore them. As time went by, the rescue center received more and more bird eggs. Keepers Fan Mengyuan, Chen Xuan and their colleagues took turns every day, turning over the eggs and observing them regularly.

Fan Mengyuan has just arrived at the rescue center, and this is her first chick season. At 8:30 a.m. on her duty day, she will check the eggs in front of the constant temperature water bed, using a flashlight or doing a floating test.

At that time, citizens sent four wheat eggs, two of which hatched successfully, one passed the floating test early and was determined to have stopped developing, and only one showed signs of life but had not yet hatched. One day, Fan Mengyuan heard the sound of the egg being cracked, and decided to make a small hole in it if it still did not hatch the next day to prevent it from suffocating in the egg.

The next day, when Fan Mengyuan performed a floating test on the egg, she found that it had no heartbeat. She carefully made a hole in the eggshell with tweezers and found that it was covered with white hair.

The survival rate of bird eggs received by the rescue center is not high, and humans can never replace the parent birds to incubate them. Bird eggs will encounter bumps during transportation, and the temperature and humidity cannot be guaranteed, so the risk of incubation is very high.

Regarding the situation of this wheat egg, Fan Mengyuan analyzed that it might be because we did not know enough about the species and failed to provide suitable developmental conditions, or it might be caused by disease.

Filling the gap in native species information ---------------

The rescue center receives approximately 1,000 animals each year.

The information on foreign species is relatively rich, which is helpful for breeders to learn from and refer to. However, it is difficult to find detailed information on local species, and basic information is basically blank, which makes the rescue work of local species more difficult.

In 2021, the native species conservation area of ​​Hongshan Zoo was completed. The native animals in the rescue center that could not be released into the wild were moved to this new home one after another. From water bodies to wetlands to mountains and forests, animals in different living environments have their own comfortable living spaces.

This way, keepers will have the opportunity to learn basic information about these native animals by raising them for a long time under conditions closer to nature.

Occasionally, the rescue center will rescue a ferret badger. This animal is small in size, moves stealthily and quickly, and is difficult to encounter in the wild, let alone track and study. The lack of relevant information and experience makes it difficult for the rescue center to quickly and accurately judge their physical condition. It is also impossible to fully understand this species with only a short rescue time.

After the badgers moved to the native area to breed, Chen Yuelong and native area breeder Zhang Xiaotong recorded the size of the cubs, hair growth, time of leaving the den, weight gain and other data. When we rescue ferret badger cubs in the future, we can compare these data to know what stage they are in. For example, whether they need to drink milk or can eat solid food; whether they have not left the den yet or can follow their parents for short distances.

This is of great help to wildlife rescue work. While accumulating data and experience, it also gradually fills the gap in local species information. Exploring species protection is originally the core work of zoos.

There are schools, teachers and exams-----------

Every spring, the rescue center receives many owl chicks. At this time, the rescue center will set up a fixed cage, called "Owl School", for them to train and live here, in preparation for their future release.

Under the gaze of more than 40 pairs of eyes, Chen Yuelong placed food on perches of different heights. By adjusting the size, type and location of food and regularly blowing it away, the breeder can train and test the chicks' basic survival abilities such as hunting and flying.

However, cultivating the social skills of young birds is the foundation of the "Owl School".

Animals raised in captivity have limited contact with the outside world. The rescue center puts chicks of the same species together so that they have the opportunity to interact with each other as they grow up. This allows them to understand how to get along with their companions, show weakness, and participate in the reproduction of the population, which humans cannot teach.

Saving animals is only the first step in wildlife rescue -------------------------

On the night of the release of the owl, we walked into the depths of the urban forest under the moonlight and with flashlights. Raccoon dogs, musk deer, black kites and water jacanas have been monitored in this area.

The rescue center has rescued 10 kinds of owls, including the northern eagle owl, the red horned owl, and the main force of the "Owl School", the spotted owl. They are very receptive to cities, and their number in cities is more than expected.

The rescue center has counted the rescue locations of the young owls, and found that many of them are located in densely populated areas of Nanjing. The presence of these top predators means that the urban ecosystem is relatively intact.

But why are so many owl chicks in need of rescue? Is this a normal ratio? Is there something wrong with their nests? Or is there something else going on?

As the work of rescuing wild animals deepens, rescuing animals is only the first step for the rescue center. Tracing the source and finding out the difficulties that wild animals encounter in the city is a link that must be taken seriously. Making them live better in the city is a more important goal.

A small extra story: Return to plants, back to the basis of ecological diversity -----------------------------

When releasing animals, keepers will collect various plant seeds according to different seasons and bring them back to the rescue center for cultivation. We use animal feces and part of the bedding as natural fertilizer for cultivating plants, thus forming an ecological microcirculation system in the rescue center. When the plants grow up, some are planted in the native area and some are planted back in the wild.

Plants are the foundation of biodiversity, and as native and other plant species increase, more insects and animals are attracted.

In the process of deeply exploring the root causes of rescue work, the rescue center pays more attention to the establishment and growth of the entire ecosystem. Starting from plants, the ecology is restored and a closed loop of rescue work is established.

The documentary series "Our Hongshan: Secrets in the Zoo" is being updated one after another. Welcome to comment and forward it~