Dangling upside-down from a tree branch, with a gut full of toxic muck, things weren’t looking good for Trevor, Kanahooka ibis.
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The leggy bottom-feeder is believe to have ingested some bad sludge soon before using the last of its energy to land in a tree over a small lake off Stanhope Drive. There it became tangled in string, doomed on two fronts.
Fire and Rescue NSW were called shortly before 8am Monday. It was a job for swift water rescue technicians from Wollongong, said Dapto’s station officer, Ryan Neich.
“We had to use the boat because the bird was stuck on a tree on an island in the middle of the little lake,” he said.
“It’s a capability that probably not many people know we have. They assist with flood rescues.
“It’s not our core business, but once we arrived, we had to assist the bird. We couldn’t leave it there.”
When rescuers went to release the bird it couldn’t walk or lift its wings.
Matt Young, of Dapto’s Companion Animal Veterinary Hospital, has since determined the bird had grown weak from botulism – a consequence of its ibis diet.
“Because they feed off the bottom, they will often pick up things that have been sitting there a while,” Dr Young said. “Sometimes bacteria grows and produces a toxin which releases into the decaying stuff that they’re eating, so they ingest that toxin and it affects the nerves.
Bird that ingest enough of the toxin can become paralysed, lose the ability to breath and die.
But Trevor will be placed with a carer, fed well, and is expected to make a full recovery.