It must be Snowy at CRC: Snowy Owl #2 is here! Patient #21191 arrived on Thursday, December 14. He w

It must be Snowy at CRC: Snowy Owl #2 is here!

Patient #21191 arrived on Thursday, December 14. He was seen by a pilot on a runway at the Piedmont International Airport. USFWS/APHIS has a protocol to capture and relocate birds at runways to prevent damage to the birds and to planes, so they captured him via a trap. Due to a moderately poor body condition and the fact that he had only been making short flights, they sent him to the Carolina Raptor Center.

He’s doing great with us. #21191 came in with a keel of 2/5, which is thin, but is MUCH better than the 1/5 keel score that our previous Snowy had. He was covered in feather lice, an external parasite. We followed our emaciation protocol and gave him fluids, vitamin B, iron, and we also started him on an antifungal, voriconazole. We ran bloodwork the next day, and it looked great.

On Sunday, we moved him into a large flight cage. He had a mini-health check to ensure everything was in working order (he looked fabulous, minus a little blood from his breakfast on his toes). He flew beautifully in the big flight cage and has been flying great since then.

So far, so good! He’s a beautiful bird!

You can track his progress here: http://raptormed.carolinaraptorcenter.org/cgi-bin/RaptorMedCGI.exe?patient=21191-2017-0935&forceDisplay=true

PS: Thanks, Joe Amodeo for being our photographer during the mini-health check and move (the first three pictures).