Day 5

Day five.

Up at 5am. I was given permission to go to Fort Jackson at 8am – a 2 hour
drive away. I arrived and was allowed to sign in and get identification
under the auspices of the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC).
I then spent several hours meeting the teams and watching as they went about
their jobs. The main intake is pelicans, primarily brown’s, but also the odd
white one. The brown pelicans were far more benign than that white one,
which launched itself at the side of its cage and snapped its beak every
time someone went by. There was a backlog in washing as they had been
slammed with intake the previous week, however they are managing to wash
between 30 and 40 birds daily, in temperatures that are inhumane to the
people. That day the temperature there was approximately 120°F. I watched
one chap put his Tyvek suit on, work in admissions for 20 minutes, then
remove his Tyvek, revealing that all his clothing underneath was wet with
sweat. The need to supervise the team members for heat stress is critical,
and everyone is charged with looking out for each other. There are coolers
with water and Gatorade everywhere. After the morning at the center, I
joined the team from HSUS and sat in on meetings with the local parish
presidents, Congress member, and Senate, followed by observing the press
conference. Most interesting.

Next was a visit to the Marine Turtle Recovery Center at the Audubon Rehab
Station. They seem to have a very well organized process in place, and plan
on holding these turtles until it is safe to return them to the wild, no
matter how long it takes.

We finished the day on Bourbon Street.