News

Current Patients

Black Vulture

Several of our recent patients have been vultures.  Three were black vultures, and one was a turkey vulture.  Although not popular with many people, they are very interesting birds.  They serve a useful purpose as nature’s janitors. 

VULTURE FACTS:

-A group of vultures is called a "Venue." 
-Vultures circling in the air are a "Kettle."
-The Turkey Vulture has the best sense of smell of the American vultures.
-Vulture poop is actually a sanitizer!  Their uric acid is so strong (because of the nature of their diets) that it kills bacteria.
-Vultures have excellent eyesight, but they have poor vision in the dark. 
-Vultures find food both with their eyesight and sense of smell.
-Circling vultures do not necessarily indicate the presence of a carcass.  Circling vultures may be gaining altitude for long flights, searching for food, or playing. 

Gopher Tortoise

This large female gopher tortoise was admitted with a fractured jaw, but no injuries to her shell.  This was unusual because most tortoises are admitted with fractured shells from being hit by a car, or with multiple punctures from large dogs that use them for chew toys. 

Veterinarian Deb Anderson of the Brevard Zoo put in a feeding tube so that we could supply nutrition to the tortoise during what will be a long healing process.  Tortoises are slow healers, but with good supportive care, many do survive what initially appear to be horrible injuries. 

Migratory seabirds

We admitted a large number of gulls, terns, loons, gannets, and pelicans during the last week of November and the first week of December.  Many who were suffering from the exhausting journey of migration could not handle the high winds and cold weather that affected Florida around the Thanksgiving holiday.  The large number of admissions will be occurring throughout the winter each time we have extremely cold or windy weather. 

Click here for more information on the Northern Gannett

Raccoons!

We’ve also had a lot more baby raccoons admitted than we usually do in November and December, but our squirrels from the fall season are mostly grown up and gone.  All of the wildlife babies seemed to be ahead of schedule this year.  This change may be an after effect of the hurricanes in 2004 & 2005.  We do wish to caution residents of Brevard County not to attempt to handle raccoons or any other rabies vector species such as bats, bobcats, skunks, or foxes. 

If you would like to contribute for food, care and medications for these birds and the other 3000+ wildlife patients we receive yearly, you may donate online using the donations links of PayPal or JustGive or mail donations to : Florida Wildlife Hospital, 4560 N. US Hwy 1, Melbourne, FL 32935. Check out our website for more information or email to request more information. Thank you for supporting Florida Wildlife Hospital and Florida's Treasure...our wildlife.