[TN-Bird] KY Great Horned Owl beats WNV?

From: "W. Kelly Roy" <roywk@xxxxxxxx>
To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 15:59:39 -0500
TN-birders:

I just received the following message which some of you may find of 
interest.  Although the message doesn't specifically state that the bird 
tested positive for WNV, it certainly implies such - "classic 
symptoms...bird beat the disease, etc."  Hopefully (?) the bird was banded 
before being released & Mr. Tamminga doesn't mind me sharing the good 
news.  Enjoy.....

W. Kelly Roy
Knoxville TN


Date:    Thu, 19 Dec 2002 14:15:13 -0600
From:    Wayne Tamminga <wtamminga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: West Nile

I picked a Great Horned Owl up  about 3 months ago on Higginson-Henry WMA.
The local DoT found it along the road and the owl didn't fly away so they
called us. Scott Buser and I captured the owl in a net, it didn't struggle
much. We thought it was either hit by a vehicle or had West Nile disease. I
brought the bird to the Hopkinsville Diagnostic Lab for testing. We got the
bird out of the box and a technician there with heavy leather gloves got it
to perch on her arm. The owl could barely keep it's head stable, was like it
was going fall off, classic symptom of West Nile. I left the information
about the bird with them and left,  I thought they would just euthanize the
owl and do a necropsy. Well this one technician was also a raptor
rehabilitator, and she called me a few weeks ago.  She said, she had to hand
feed the bird for 2 weeks, then the bird finally started getting better and
was able to start eating on its own. In six weeks she released the bird back
into the wild at Pennyrile State Forest. So the bird beat the disease, not
sure if it will have a life long immunity to the disease or not, thought
would be an interesting story given some of the West Nile posts recently.
Seems to effect certain species more then others i.e. horses, owls here in
Kentucky. It is found in all 120 counties of the state and in my county
alone Barren, 2 or 3 people died form it.

Wayne Tamminga
KY Dept. of Fish and Wildlife Resources
Public Lands Biologist for the Green River Region
Certified Wildlife Biologist
970 Bennett Lane, Bowling Green, KY 42104
(270)746-7130 & 7131 fax
wtamminga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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[TN-Bird] KY Great Horned Owl beats WNV?

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