Wildlife Rehabilitation
by Becky Nichols
July 11, 2005

A couple of days ago we saw a Madagascar turtle dove in the forest that didn’t look right: it seemed to stumble about instead of walking, and would frequently stop and rapidly shake its head back and forth. It seemed virtually unaware of our presence, and let us come fairly close before trying to move away. Later Julie got a look at it and brought it back to camp. She’s worked with lots of American wildlife, and was pretty sure the dove had Newcastle’s disease, a virus that affects birds and is easily transmitted from one bird to another.

We placed the dove in a cardboard box, and tried to keep it dark and quiet. Julie gave it sub-cutaneous fluids the first day, and we fed it some Gatorade. Yesterday we made it a nice rice slurry: some rice ground up in Gatorade with a few beans added for protein. I’m sure it didn’t taste that good, but we wanted to get some nutrients into the poor bird. That night I passed my first avian crop tube, and I got to give the bird the subcutaneous fluids. My time in Madagascar is really about firsts for me!

Unfortunately the turtle dove died: today Julie euthanized it. I’m sad that the bird didn’t make it, but apparently a lot of these wildlife cases can’t really be helped. And it was a really interesting learning experience for me. I studied Newcastle’s disease in school last semester, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen it. I think I’ll remember it better now!