We still have 11 seals which are all the survivors for the year. With Shona taking a 3 week vacation right when we got to the point of being able to do blood draws on seals it complicated things a bit. So we have been holding onto them. I also wanted to be able to show Vanessa how to draw blood so I needed someone seasoned to sit on the seal (aka Shona). We did do a blood draw on 4 seals on Thursday and the plan is for a Oct 17th release. Next week we will draw blood on another 3 seals and get them out the following week. We have one seal who is ubber slow (18.8 kg for the past 3 weeks) and just won't eat on his own. He has been a problem child from the get go and unfortunately had some health issues so he got a little more use to us than we would have liked. Today he finally started to associated the fish slapping the water as food instead of just staring at the person for another fish. Hopefully we have seen the last of our babies.
Late season brought us 9 grey squirrels (all in the w mammal cage now), 2 Douglas babies (one in the orchard cage and one just came in 2 days ago and is still on formula, she also has a break to the femur that we will just have to wait and see how it heals), 3 flying squirrels that are running around the indoor mew, a few cottontails that have gone to mainland, and a euro rabbit who has probably just a few more days on formula before we can get him/her out to a hutch. Recently we got in a turkey vulture, one that is still alive and not in a horrid state, looks like some bad molting or feather loss so it looks like we may be having this one over winter. We also have a RTH and a Saw-whet owl, they both got tagged by cars and it appears to just be soft tissue damage on both so hopefully we can do quick turn around on them. Some of the coons are getting big, so I will be working on getting 4 or 5 out over the next week or so. The fawns are doing well, big, and no major fur loss like last year. And of course the otters are otters, they have gotten to enjoy live fish and live crab, which was very amusing. Something that I am working with that I am just not sure what to do with is a garter snake that might have been hit by a car, it has some abrasions and the head looks a little misshapen, I tried to take him/her outside to see how it did and there is just no sense of direction. when it lifts its head it basically falls backwards on to the back of the head then turns over onto the belly. You can stomp and shake the ground but the snake just sits there not feeling threatened or anything. Feels strange to think about putting it down because it is a snake, but the thought of putting it out and letting it slowly starve to death or freeze to death, or be come way to easy of a target for a predator seems unfair. /sigh
That’s about it for things from the hollow. Besides construction type work. Both septic systems got revamped while Shona was gone on vacation and it was a nightmare, the work went fast but the tearing up of the ground, lack of them communicating with us, and having to be very conscious of how much water we were putting down into the septic tank until it was online was nerve racking. All the permits have been approved for the maintenance building so they are going to start on that on Monday. Hopefully that goes quickly too. Once it is done, we will be moving stuff from the warehouse into the building, so that we can move some things inside. We have to become ADA friendly so we have to change the radiograph suite a bit and the processing room has to be changed (nothing major in either just some moving of equipment).
Shona and Ross are planning on heading for the hills for her weekend so I will be on call tomorrow night even though it is my day off b/c Vanessa took some time to go to a family function in Minnesota. I just want to get the kids out the door before I think about taking an extra day or two off. Then I feel like I will be able to take a deep breath and not worry so much. It has been chilly here some mornings, about 40 degrees, I just am not quite ready for it.
Everyone on mainland enjoy the changing colors for me, that is one thing I miss.
