A RARE bird had a portion of its fractured wing amputated after being rescued.
East Sussex Wildlife Rescue and Ambulance Service (WRAS) receive a call on June 2 about a bird with a damaged wing at Mayfield.
Rescuers thought the bird was likely a heron, but to their surprise turned out to be a white stork.
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An ambulance was dispatched, and rescuer Julie Stafford managed to corral the stork into a position where she was able to catch the bird using a rescue pole and net.
The bird was driven to WRAS’s Casualty Care Centre in Whitesmith, near Lewes, where the care team discovered the bird's wing was badly fractured.
Its wounds were cleaned up and medication was administered.
Lead casualty manager Katie Nunn Nash contacted the White Stork Project as the bird was ringed.
Liaising with the project, it was agreed that WRAS's vets would look at removing the fractured section of wing and allowing the bird to live at the White Stork Project Sanctuary as part of a breed and release programme.
On June 7, WRAS vet Mike Symons anaesthetised the stork while Katie managed to make a special mask as the bird's beak was too long for conventional masks.
The fracture was too severe to be fixable resulting in the damaged section of wing being amputated.
Mike the operation was not as straight forward as the location of the complicated fracture was also gangrene and left little healthy skin or tissue around the fracture site.
After the operation the bird was bedded down and WRAS’s Care Team spent the next few weeks helping the bird to recover to full health again.
On July 3, the stork was transported back to the White Stork Project’s facilities in West Sussex to be released into a six-acre enclosure to live with other storks as part of a breed and release programme.
The stork was likely released in the summer of 2020 on the Knepp Estate in West Sussex but managed to fly to Wadhurst where it joined other storks in that area before flying down to Mayfield.
East Sussex WRAS founder Trevor Weeks MBE said the whole experience was “certainly a first for WRAS”.
“Thank you to the finder for calling us, plus the White Stork Project for their support and a huge well done to our vet, Care Team and volunteers for working so hard with him and helping him to recover.,” he said.
The total cost of the rescue operation and recovery is expected to reach more than £1,200, of which the White Stork Project are contributing towards this cost.
“We are all hoping that we start to see more of these birds in East Sussex in the near future” Katie added.
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