WILDLIFE REHABILITATION TECHNIQUES: 

 PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 



Alice B. Berkner 

 Executive Director, International Bird Rescue Research Center 



Berkeley. California 



INTRODUCTION 



Research in oiled bird rehabilitation has developed through a trial and 

 error approach. We shall attempt to outline what has happened in this highly 

 specialized area and to indicate the status of oiled bird rehabilitation today. 

 Recommendations are made to further improve treatment techniques by system- 

 atic research and improved response capability. 



THE PAST 



As early as the 1830 ' s , (Waterton 1832) controversy raged among orni- 

 thologists as to what was responsible for keeping birds waterproof. Over the 

 years two schools of thought emerged (Elder 1954). One school insisted that 

 waxes secreted by the uropygial gland and distributed over the feathers during 

 preening allowed the birds to stay dry in their environment. The other school 

 protested vigorously that the waxes were needed to maintain the feathers in a 

 supple condition and that waterproofing was due to alignment on a microscopic 

 level. Today (Fabricius 1959) the latter hypothesis predominates but the 

 belief that waxes are responsible for waterproofing is alive and well in the 

 minds of the public, many academics, and some wildlife biologists. 



In 1942 a description of one of the first recorded attempts to clean 

 oiled birds appeared in a U.S. Department of the Interior wildlife leaflet. 

 F.A. Lincoln (1936) described using mild white soap and drying with a stream 

 of compressed air in the direction of the feathers. Stedman, (1952) used a 

 mixture of corn oil, neatsfoot oil, detergent, waxes, solvent, and water. 

 The paste was applied to oiled birds who were then allowed to preen the sub- 

 stance from their feathers. After 10 days the birds were shedding water 

 although they still looked oiled and probably were. Whether they survived 

 is unknown. 



Throughout the fifties and sixties a variety of cleaning agents was 

 tried: powdered chalk, fuller's earth, mascara remover, butter, lard, deter- 

 gents, castor oil, mineral oil, and waterless handcleaner. Methods reached 

 the ultimate with the immersion of oiled ducks in an ultrasonic cleaning de- 

 vice filled with a detergent solution (Brown in Aldrich 1970). The result 

 of all these experiments was the same: birds were not left in a condition 

 that would allow them to survive in the wild; most of the birds had to molt 

 before release was possible, and that took months. 



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