Earlier this evening, about a little less than two hours ago, I was out in my backyard, ready to play some baseball with my father. We were about forty seconds into our "game" when he asked me if I had seen "the bird that was stuck." I had not.
Surely enough, there was a bird (I've been trying to identify this particular species for the longest) caught in an apple tree, with a pinkish string wrapped around its ankle multiple times, which my father later said must have been there for about half hour (why didn't he do something/tell me?!). The string was zig-zagging through many of the branches, so I figure that the bird must have been flying through and got caught, then started struggling to get off the branch. He began crying out and started flapping desperately a few times, til the point where he was hanging upside down.
Watching him suffer was too much, so my father decided to grab a ladder, and we tried to get him out. We didn't want to injure him at all, so we cut the branch that he was stuck on, and cut some of the string as well. However, we quickly noticed that he had been struggling far too long, as his leg was literally shredded, mangled and twisted backwards. At this point, my uncle and father, after evaluating the injury, decided that the leg was of no use to the bird (which was too obvious) and cut it off with a gardening tool (the plier-looking things, the name escapes me right now). I wasn't really for or against it, I was in slight shock, as was the bird (he was totally "calm" at this point - I figured he was shocked having been in my father's hands for a few minutes).
So, off went the leg, with his little bloodied bone sticking out. I was asking if there was a veterinarian nearby, which there was - but this option wasn't even seriously considered by my father or uncle (either because they simply didn't want to - they'd been working out back for a few hours - or because they thought "he would be okay").
So we went and placed him down, and, after a few seconds which seemed to last forever, he emerged from his trance-like state and flew off into a bush across the yard, where he was greeted by a relative/friend who had probably been waiting for him after hearing his cries. You could clearly see him struggle to perch, land, and move from branch to branch, and, after visiting the bush a few minutes later, I saw him just with his broken leg dangling, while the other was nestled under his body. He was just sitting there. It was getting dark, so I had to go inside, and, to be perfectly honest, I was tearing up. I'd never been in a situation like that, and I thought the whole thing was poorly executed (but what could I have done? I had no clue what to do). So, I have a few concerns/questions:
How hard is life for a bird with no leg (in this case, the bird is a passerine of some sort)? Could the injury be infected because a garden tool was used to "amputate" the leg? Will the injury properly heal with no bandages/immediate "cures" used? Does a bird bleed a lot when its leg is broken and, if so, can a bird die of blood loss? (I am very obviously not a bird person, I know relatively nothing about birds.) How long would you expect this bird to live? Once again, my father and I had no idea what to do, and my uncle is the type that just do something to get it over with, so I have no idea what was done right and done wrong. Thank you.
Surely enough, there was a bird (I've been trying to identify this particular species for the longest) caught in an apple tree, with a pinkish string wrapped around its ankle multiple times, which my father later said must have been there for about half hour (why didn't he do something/tell me?!). The string was zig-zagging through many of the branches, so I figure that the bird must have been flying through and got caught, then started struggling to get off the branch. He began crying out and started flapping desperately a few times, til the point where he was hanging upside down.
Watching him suffer was too much, so my father decided to grab a ladder, and we tried to get him out. We didn't want to injure him at all, so we cut the branch that he was stuck on, and cut some of the string as well. However, we quickly noticed that he had been struggling far too long, as his leg was literally shredded, mangled and twisted backwards. At this point, my uncle and father, after evaluating the injury, decided that the leg was of no use to the bird (which was too obvious) and cut it off with a gardening tool (the plier-looking things, the name escapes me right now). I wasn't really for or against it, I was in slight shock, as was the bird (he was totally "calm" at this point - I figured he was shocked having been in my father's hands for a few minutes).
So, off went the leg, with his little bloodied bone sticking out. I was asking if there was a veterinarian nearby, which there was - but this option wasn't even seriously considered by my father or uncle (either because they simply didn't want to - they'd been working out back for a few hours - or because they thought "he would be okay").
So we went and placed him down, and, after a few seconds which seemed to last forever, he emerged from his trance-like state and flew off into a bush across the yard, where he was greeted by a relative/friend who had probably been waiting for him after hearing his cries. You could clearly see him struggle to perch, land, and move from branch to branch, and, after visiting the bush a few minutes later, I saw him just with his broken leg dangling, while the other was nestled under his body. He was just sitting there. It was getting dark, so I had to go inside, and, to be perfectly honest, I was tearing up. I'd never been in a situation like that, and I thought the whole thing was poorly executed (but what could I have done? I had no clue what to do). So, I have a few concerns/questions:
How hard is life for a bird with no leg (in this case, the bird is a passerine of some sort)? Could the injury be infected because a garden tool was used to "amputate" the leg? Will the injury properly heal with no bandages/immediate "cures" used? Does a bird bleed a lot when its leg is broken and, if so, can a bird die of blood loss? (I am very obviously not a bird person, I know relatively nothing about birds.) How long would you expect this bird to live? Once again, my father and I had no idea what to do, and my uncle is the type that just do something to get it over with, so I have no idea what was done right and done wrong. Thank you.
). I didn't really have a say in the final decision, but I knew that removing the leg was wrong... especially with a gardening tool of all things! I was leaning towards vet, but nobody, as I said, was seriously considering it. My uncle is pretty heartless when it comes to these situations (he won't even think twice about stopping for a skunk on the road), and he thinks he knows a little more than he really does, and my father was just a bit clueless, so the decision was basically left in the hands of the completely wrong person. In my opinion it was all just really poorly executed. I guess the guilt is from not speaking up and suggesting a better solution, but there's no point in dwelling on it now, I guess.
