Hello and welcome to this week’s Sunday edition. Some of these photos may be disturbing for some people as these are images of wild animals who have injuries or deformities of an unknown origin. I can’t report on whether or not any of them have survived except for the coyote who I saw just recently.
I had a very sick cat over the Thanksgiving weekend and while she has recovered thanks to a stint at the vet hospital, it got me thinking about animals in the wild who don’t necessarily have the luxury of human intervention. I remembered a number of animal encounters and thought it might make an interesting post.
Over the past few years I have documented the injuries of a number of wild animals, sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally. I am always impressed by an animal’s ability to adapt to their circumstances and from what I have personally observed, the more social an animal is the more likely it is to survive.
The first raven photo is one of my favourite images because the raven in this image looks uncharacteristically vulnerable. Ravens are usually cheeky pranksters who have a wicked sense of humour and the curiosity of a three year old. This bird seemed shy. Fortunately, this bird had a mate or a friend who was helping it eat.
Similarly, the coyote who is missing his tail had a mate helping him as well. I first observed this pair navigating a frozen lake in the earliest part of spring. We had a very cold winter last year with temperatures dipping into the -50ºC range with wind chill. I’m not sure if this coyote lost his tail to frostbite, if it froze to the ground, was caught in a trap or became infected from a dog bite. I spotted the pair again just a couple of weeks ago and they both looked healthy in their thickening winter coats.
The bison in the images below seemed unaware and unperturbed by their injuries; the young bison may not even have realized that there was anything wrong with its vision. Would you know you were missing something if you’d never had it in the first place? Neither animal’s appetite seemed affected in any respect.
I have no idea what happened to the raven with the abscessed beak, or to the ptarmigan with the neck wound. I saw the ptarmigan a few times but I’m not sure they have as many lives as cats. I never spotted the raven a second time.
Living in the wilderness is not easy. There is no doctor’s office or emergency room where an animal can go to get patched up. Unless they are lucky enough to have someone intervene and get them to a wildlife rehabilitation facility, many animals are forced to endure their illnesses and injuries until they recover or die. Not surprisingly many animals perish but many also adapt to their disabilities and thrive in the wild, at least for a while.
Thanks for stopping by. See you next week!