Rescuing a flying-fox hanging off a chair: this is Fitz скачать в хорошем качестве

Rescuing a flying-fox hanging off a chair: this is Fitz

Fitz is a subadult male Grey-Headed Flying-Fox on the cusp of adulthood, who was found hanging on a laundry trolley in a suburban backyard; the lovely MOPs enticed him onto a stick and brought him inside so he could be safe from roaming cats then called for rescue. He was hanging off a chair in their enclosed screen verandah, but they were quite cool with his presence. He was extremely quiet until I tried to have a look at him, when he started screaming with pain and stress. Sometimes it's hard to tell if they're just outraged by the whole accident and capture thing, or if they're truly in pain - but Fitz was truly in pain, with an extreme head tilt, indicating significant head injury. It was hard to examine him in care, despite analgesia and leaving him for a while, he required some sedation to be able to safely handle him to just see what was going on with him. When taking him off one roll and putting him onto another one, I noticed he was bleeding from his chest or abdomen, and there was blood seeping out from his back as well onto his wrap. This indicated to me that he was probably attacked by a raptor (bird of prey) and had punctures on his body. Despite the sedation he was still difficult to handle so I called in Maggie to hold him while I shaved his chest and back to just see if he had any punctures. The combination of the punctures I found, plus his extreme head tilt, plus his extreme distress and lack of relief to the analgesia and sedation, added to the lack of available care (the Princess who is great with these injuries but she is still managing her premmie baby around the clock), meant that the kindest thing we could do for him was to euthanase him. I don't like doing this, but with this guy I doubt he would have survived the night anyway, even if the Princess was able to care for him. I did a necropsy after he was euthanased, and found one talon had punctured into his chest cavity, and he had another one which went into his abdomen. He had 10 punctures in his chest and belly with matching punctures on his back. Raptor talons carry some pretty horrible bacteria and when injected deep into tissue causes massive gram negative sepsis within the punctures which rapidly becomes systemic. Care for these little ones requires heavy duty antibiotics, wound management, very good analgesia, IV fluids and intensive care. I also tested his bones during the necropsy, to see if they were soft; I could bend them to 45 degrees without them breaking which indicates a level of softness way beyond normal for a bat his age. His head tilt was the most extreme I've ever seen. RIP young Mr Fitz. I'm sorry your potential couldn't have been realised into adulthood.