Communities across the state have stepped up to help the Montana Wild Rehabilitation Center in Helena take care of a migratory water bird that overextended its stay in Montana.
Rehab center program manager Ali Pons says it’s the community’s generosity that’s helping them take care of an American white pelican.
"We are so grateful," she said.
Pons says it started with the people who found the migratory water fowl last month outside of Miles City, unable to fly. The bird was transferred from a local wildlife rehabber to the Montana Raptor Center in Bozeman, and then to the Wild’s center in Helena.
Montana Wild isn't set up inside to overwinter water fowl but they are making do: setting up a pool and some soft flooring and keeping temperatures warm "so we can keep it as happy as we can," Pons said.
The bird does not have any fractures hindering its ability to fly, but it does have some old wounds and a shortening of a tendon along the top of its wing. And it’s malnourished: Pelicans need some 5 pounds of fish a day, so the center turned the community for donations
We were able to get more than enough food to hold us over for quite some time with the pelican," Pons said.
Included was a large fish donation that had been languishing in a freezer, left over from completed research at a University of Montana genetics lab at a FWP fish hatchery.
The bird is currently getting physical therapy and gaining weight. The next step is to get it stable enough to transport it to another rehab center that is set up to overwinter a pelican and that has other pelicans that can keep it company.
The ultimate goal, Pons says, is to get the pelican back into the wild.
