Friday, August 6, 2010

August 5, 2010 Yellow-nosed Albatross Update

We are very excited by the progress of the new Waterbird Aviary/Semi-Aquatic Mammal Enclosure! The very generous pool donation by Shelin Pools of Napanee has inspired a whole new waterbird aviary. Thanks to Greg Moore (our volunteer cage builder extraordinaire, we
have the Isolation Room to prove it!) who called Paul Gooding (Journeyman Carpenter) of Shasta & Associates Inc. for some friendly advice about building an aviary. Paul came out and agreed to take the project on; he enlisted the help of Gord Colbourne, P.Eng (Designs by
SunlifeVillage.com) who is currently working on the plans! Meanwhile, The Pool Doctor of Belleville has offered to put the pool together. So we are one step closer to having Alby in a much better enclosure.

In the meantime Sue is working hard to secure the proper paper work to send Alby to Dr. Florina Tseng (http://www.tufts.edu/vet/facpages/tseng_f.html) at Tufts U in Mass. USA. Dr. Tseng has worked with Albatross before and is more than willing to take on the next leg of the journey for Alby! They will also have more "clout" to get him right back to the mid Atlantic Ocean between South Africa and South America!

Last word she had from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services was 30 days for the permit. We are looking into possible flights out of Ottawa directly to Boston. We were hoping to drive him, but there are only certain entry points you can bring a bird through to the US from Canada. So it would be safer and faster to fly him out of Ottawa!

In the meantime he is maintaining a healthy weight, his demeanor i quite spry, he is preening himself and, a lot more vocal than he was for his first 2 weeks with us. We are hopeful for him, but always keeping a guarded prognosis as his is a long, tough battle before he gets released back home in the Southern Hemisphere.


He sure has brought lots of attention to SPWC and the amazing work accomplished by a hard working team of incredibly compassionate people. We were on CBC Radio 1 (Ottawa) yesterday and today, they are very keen to keep in touch with this compelling story.



Yellow-nosed Albatross doing well!

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