Plea from bird rescuer: ‘Don’t shoot to injure’
A Timaru woman devoted to rescuing sick and injured birds is urging those who shoot pests to ensure they are dead before leaving the scene.
Zena Guthrie’s plea comes after she was alerted to two blackbacked gulls with gunshot wounds left suffering for days, the first at Washdyke and the second at Levels, discovered just over a week apart.
‘‘Don’t shoot to injure. Shoot to kill,’’ Guthrie said.
‘‘I would prefer that they don’t do it [shoot pests] but just don’t let anything suffer.
‘‘If you shoot something, you need to retrieve it.
‘‘A bird, a possum, it doesn’t matter what it is.’’
One gull was put down, its wing smashed and twisted by a bullet. The other, Snappy, lost the use of its legs, possibly from a bullet having hit a nerve.
Guthrie waited a few days to see if the bird showed improvement – but last Friday made the decision to put it down.
‘‘When you get birds in like that and you know it was a human action that caused it, it sucks,’’ she said.
‘‘With cats it is nature but it shouldn’t be for humans.’’
Guthrie believed the birds had survived with their injuries for days because the first gull’s wound looked aged, while Snappy was seen sitting in the same spot by a paddock fence two days in a row.
The Environment Canterbury website states that while the black-backed gull is a native species, it is not protected. In fact, the regional council targets them with a control programme because they prey on the eggs and chicks of the black-fronted tern, black-billed gull, wrybill, and banded dotterel – rare and threatened bird species that nest on braided riverbeds.
Guthrie said in between the discovery of the two shot birds was a rescue with a happier outcome. An albatross which survived being battered by a storm and tangled in seaweed was recovering at Dunedin’s Wildlife Hospital and would likely be back in the wild next week.
‘‘I try and make the good things over-run the bad because if I just look at the bad, it is a lot emotionally,’’ she said.
‘‘It [the rescue] was brilliant and reminds you why you are doing it.’’
Timaru woman Deb Hales carried the ‘‘wet and exhausted’’ white-capped mollymawk – which weighed between 3.4kg and 4.4kg, and had a wingspan of about 2 metres – 25 minutes along Jack’s Point beach to her car, and drove it to Guthrie’s home.
Hales had been going for her regular walk along the coastline when she looked down at the beach below her.
‘‘I saw the bird just lying there. I scrambled down and as I got closer it got bigger and bigger.
‘‘It was on its back and its head was flopped back. It looked like it was getting down to its last efforts to breathe.’’
Hales said she picked the ‘‘heavy and sodden’’ bird up, ‘‘struggled back up the bank’’ and carried it back to the car.
‘‘The bird was completely exhausted and it just kept looking up at me the whole way.’’
Guthrie was thankful to everyone involved, from Hales to Timaru vet Marnie Crilly to Project Kereru co-ordinator Nik Curring who organised a ride to Dunedin for the albatross.
‘‘That was all teamwork,’’ she said.
Wildlife Hospital director and veterinarian Dr Lisa Argilla said the albatross, which Hales named Braveheart, was ‘‘surprisingly bright and strong’’ for a bird which had experienced such an ordeal.
‘‘This bird’s blood tests are looking pretty good which means it has a much better prognosis for recovery.’’
‘‘If you shoot something, you need to retrieve it.’’
Zena Guthrie, bird rescuer