A laughing gull was admitted to our hospital with a blow dart impalement. Read more here to learn about his injury, treatment, and what you can do to support this important work!
TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains themes of humans purposefully harming wildlife. Please use viewer discretion.
This laughing gull came to us with a blow-dart arrow impalement. The gull was amazingly still flight capable, and gave our experienced rescue team a run for their money. Once he was secured and transported to our hospital, he was assessed and stabilized. It appears that the dart did not affect any major organs, which is quite unlikely and very lucky for this bird. The next day, our hospital staff carefully extracted the arrow, and we are hopeful that he didn’t sustain any internal injuries. He is now eating well and on his way to be moved to an outdoor recovery pen, where he will stay and regain his strength and endurance before being released back out into the wild.
While in captivity, our gulls eat a combination of fish, meat, shellfish, and other assorted seafood with vitamins added in. As you can imagine, this definitely racks up the bill- we want to feed the best food we can get our hands on for these patients! If you are interested in supporting this gull’s recovery, you can donate monetarily to help with the cost of the food and medical care we provide these birds, or you can donate any uncooked and unseasoned meat and seafood to help provide a quality diet to our birds!
If you ever witness someone purposely harming wildlife, please call Fish & Wildlife or our rescue team at 727-391-6211, then press Extension 1.
