Happy OWL-O-WEEN!!! (See what I did there? :) ) In honor of todays spooktacular holiday heres a highlight of one of our patients presently in care at The Wildlife Clinic: Titan is a male, Great-Horned Owl, the largest species of owl we have in Rhode Island. We dont usually name our patients, but Titans ferocity and spirit warrant a strong name. Titan came to us very early in the morning on October 14th. He had been hit by a truck on the Rt. 138 - Jamestown Exit. Luckily, the driver of the vehicle realized what had happened and took the time to check on Titan to see if he had survived the impact, which he had. The driver immediately recovered the owl and drove him to The Wildlife Clinic. Upon presentation, we immediately knew that Titans left wing was badly fractured (first picture) - the humerus had broken cleanly, but the lower portion of the bone had retracted toward his radius/ulna, away from the other portion of the bone. Amazingly enough the bone had not broken through the skin, which gave him a fighting chance. Titan was immediately scheduled for surgery, a surgery done by Dr. Bird, and which took a full 2.5 hours. Essentially, Dr. Bird had to reposition the lower portion of the humerus, align it with the upper portion of the bone and then insert a metal rod through the bone to hold the pieces in place while healing. Surgery was grueling and intense, but Titan made it through. The second picture of this series is the pin that was used to hold the bone in place and the third picture is one week after surgery. You can see that the humerus is completely aligned and looks as good as we could possibly hope for in this situation. Today, approximately two weeks after his first surgery, Titan underwent a second surgery to remove the pin. The initial fracture is healed, but Titan will remain on antibiotics and pain medication for at least another week, while undergoing physical therapy to loosen the tendons and joint of his elbow which became very tight due to his trauma and the limited mobility of his wing during his first phase of recovery. The fourth picture is Titan before his surgery today. We have high hopes for his recovery and his condition improves a little bit each day. Titan has a long road to recovery ahead of him before he can be released. He will need extensive flight conditioning and we will need to ensure he can fly and hunt successfully to ensure that hell be able to survive. This may all seem like a lot of effort for just an owl, but we here at WRARI believe that all life and all species are important and because we can help and we can do something for these creatures, we do and we will. Happy OWL-O-WEEN!!!
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 20:22:30 +0000
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