Malnourished caracara pops up in state, undergoes rehab

Sick and emaciated when it was captured near Oil Trough, this crested caracara has recovered sufficiently to be allowed space in which to flap about in Raptor Rehab of Central Arkansas’ big flight pen.
Sick and emaciated when it was captured near Oil Trough, this crested caracara has recovered sufficiently to be allowed space in which to flap about in Raptor Rehab of Central Arkansas’ big flight pen.

"When I first saw it, I knew it was out of place. It was not like anything I had seen before," Craig Shirley said.

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Rodney Paul is a certified raptor rehabilitator whose facility has helped more than 900 birds.

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Crested caracaras hunt for small prey on foot but also are opportunistic carrion eaters who will muscle their way past smaller birds to take over a meal.

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This map shows the location of Oil Trough in northeastern Arkansas.

A rare winged carnivore somehow found its way May 8 to his farm in Olyphant, near Oil Trough. It looked like a very big hawk but with extra long legs, and its head was not the right color for a local hawk.

Shirley noticed this odd bird tottering around in his front yard as he headed out in the morning to work on the farm. While he knew the bird was out of place, he didn't think any more about it until he saw it again later that day.

"I thought that was strange. I figured it would be gone," he said.

The bird remained on the property throughout that weekend. Shirley and his son typed descriptions of it into an online search engine and came up with a probable identity: crested caracara, a tropical member of the falcon family whose male and female adults are 19 to 23 inches tall.

Shirley took some photos of the bird to show his in-laws, and they asked if they could send them to Cpl. Roger Tate, an enforcement officer with the Sharp County branch of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Tate shared the photos with Karen Rowe, the agency's nongame migratory bird program coordinator.

"She was very excited about it," Shirley said. And with good reason. This is the first time in Arkansas history that a crested caracara has been spotted in the state.

As soon as Tate saw the bird on Shirley's farm, he could tell something was wrong with it, that it was sick or wounded and should be captured and taken to a rehabilitation facility. By this point, the Arkansas Audubon Society had posted Shirley's photos on Facebook, and bird enthusiasts were showing up at Olyphant to get a glimpse of the caracara, dubbed "Cresty" by Shirley's daughter.

The bird was transported to Raptor Rehab of Central Arkansas in El Paso, and it is still there, recuperating.

Rodney Paul, director of the rehabilitation center, said the caracara was emaciated and had skin irritation around the eyes. It hadn't flown away because it wasn't able to fly. It had a very prominent keel, an extension of the breastbone in birds. That bone was so visible because of malnourishment; it didn't have the muscle needed to fly.

The day the caracara came to his facility, Paul was in San Antonio where by coincidence he had seen his first crested caracara in the wild. His wife, Melissa, and volunteers took in the Oil Trough raptor, confining it at first in a small treatment crate. Care included antibiotic ointment for its eye irritation and a steady diet of dead rats.

After almost three weeks of treatment, the bird was moved May 27 to a small flight pen, where it had a bit more room to flap around and could begin the process of building its muscles up for flight.

FALCON-VULTURE

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds pages on the species state that "although it looks like a long-legged hawk and associates with vultures, the crested caracara is actually in the same family as falcons." Describing its range, All About Birds says the species is common in Mexico and Central and South America, but reaches the United States only in Arizona, Texas and Florida. "It is a bird of open country, where it often is seen at carrion with vultures."

A carnivore, it hunts insects and small creatures on foot in open prairies and plains, typically catching larger animals only when they're weak. It is also an opportunist that will make a meal of carrion on the highways.

Dan Scheiman, bird conservation director for Audubon Arkansas, said it was only a matter of time before one of these birds was seen in the Natural State.

"The species is a permanent resident in south Texas and south Florida, and they're much more common in Mexico, but they've been expanding their range north and eastward. We expected we'd see one in Arkansas before too long, but we expected it to appear in southwest Arkansas, not northeast," Scheiman said.

Rowe said that while she never would have expected to find a caracara in Oil Trough, the area where it was found does resemble the bird's natural habitat.

"They like pastures. This bird was found surrounded by farmland, and there was a pond nearby. It must have felt at home," Rowe said.

INTO THE WILD?

Rowe said that Game and Fish had intended to let the bird recover and then transport it to Texas for release back into its normal habitat, but after consulting with Joan Morrison, a professor of biology at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., it was decided that the bird will be released where it was found in Oil Trough.

Morrison has been monitoring a group of caracaras in Florida, where the species is classified as threatened. Everywhere else in its normal range it is considered a "species of least concern," that is, not endangered.

"Caracaras are doing some strange things within the last year, and they're showing up in areas they're not normally found," Rowe said, noting that the birds have been spotted as far north as New Jersey and New York.

The bird's leg will be fitted with a colored band to identify it as the individual that was found in Arkansas. Before its release, it will be fitted with a radio transmitter costing about $2,000, which Morrison has raised for the purchase. It will be observed for another week to see how it handles wearing the apparatus. Then Morrison will assess the bird to ensure it has made a full recovery before it is released.

The transmitter will let her monitor the caracara to see how it continues its journey.

"My first reaction was not to take the bird back to Oil Trough since that isn't its natural habitat," Paul said, "but we hope to use this bird for research to see where it goes from here, whether it will return back to its home or if it will continue on to another location."

Paul said the caracara will most likely be released in mid-July, but that depends upon how quickly it recovers.

EL PASO HAVEN

Paul and his wife have operated the rehab facility for 13 years with the help of a small staff of volunteers, about 10 people who range from working adults to high school students. Raptor Rehab of Central Arkansas is one of nine federally permitted raptor rehabilitation facilities in the state, and Paul is one of only three rehabilitators in the state certified to handle bald and golden eagles.

Raptor Rehab is currently treating a bald eagle that was brought in with a drooping wing.

The rehabilitation facility, which surrounds Paul's home in El Paso, is not open to the public, but he does conduct educational programs around the state at public venues, mainly state parks.

The facility is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and depends solely on money from the Pauls' pockets and donations. Entergy provided funding for the large flight pen on the property, which required more than $20,000 to construct. Paul estimates he has about $8,000 invested in the rest of the pens, and the rehab facility spends anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000 per year on feed, depending on how many birds it is housing.

According to the center's website, it has rehabilitated and released more than 900 birds. His facility sees many birds that are brought in unnecessarily, particularly when young birds are fledging.

"People find a young bird on the ground and think it has been abandoned and will pick it up and bring it to us when most likely the parents were still there trying to teach their young to fly. People have good intentions and are just doing what they think they should, but it's better to not touch one of these birds if you find it in the wild.

"We commonly hear people say, 'Wow, it's so cool that you have all these amazing birds here,' but we'd rather see these birds in the wild as they are meant to be," Paul said.

He said when people find a young bird on the ground, they should not assume the bird is in need of rescue but instead contact a rehabilitator for advice. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission provides a list of rehabilitators for various wildlife in the state online at agfc.com.

The Pauls post progress updates on the caracara and other bird patients on their Raptor Rehab of Central Arkansas Facebook page. More information about the facility is online at rrca-raptors.org. Donations are tax deductible, and donors can request their donation go specifically to help the caracara in its recovery.

ActiveStyle on 06/22/2015

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