Rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing (or retaining) street pigeons, ranging from chicks to seniors, is a big part of our workload and cost.
We have decided to share the story of Ice.
He was begging for icecream cone scraps at Island Gelato Co on the Auckland city ferry terminal.
He was thin, and struggling to walk due to large wads of human hair tangled around his feet. With patience, we handcaught him and he traveled in our backpack by ferryboat to our North Shore animal shelter.
We gently cut away the mass of hair and debris, only to discover that a toe on each foot was without circulation and would self-amputate without intervention.
We lacked the magnifying eye glasses and fine tools to remove the deeply embedded material, so reached out to vet Steve, at East Coast Bays Vet.
Steve kindly and expertly hooked out the remaining tightly wrapped hair strands and Ice's toes were turning from white to a healthier red within an hour.
Now our task was to keep those toes clean and to build up Ice's body condition with plentiful healthy nutrition prior to taking him back to his home. See the first comment for a video clip.
Please come back tomorrow for a video of little Ice being released to his home territory after his recovery.
Many thanks to trustee, Paul, to volunteer, Nadja, and to vet, Steve, for playing crucial roles in Ice's rescue
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
