Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Destin, Florida: Style'n in the Pilatus PC12. Booby back home after refuge, pilot save the day

DELIVERY: Chip Crunk and Jack Anthony flew the masked booby from Destin to South Florida where he will stay a few days before being ferried to the Dry Tortugas. 


More than two months after Tropical Storm Lee left him stranded on Okaloosa Island, the masked booby is headed back home to the Dry Tortugas.

“When we picked him up, he was weak and emaciated from being stuck in the storm,” said Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge wildlife health supervisor Stephanie Kadletz.

After a closer look, refuge workers also discovered the homesick bird was suffering from an upper respiratory infection and would need treatment and rehabilitation before he could be released.

“We had to help him waterproof himself by not handling him with out bare hands. We put him in the pool two times a day to get him to preen himself,” Kadletz told The Log.

Preening stimulates the bird’s oil glands, which is important in keeping the bird’s feathers glossy so water beads up on them rather than penetrate to the skin.

During his stay on the Emerald Coast, the booby stayed nameless, but Kadletz said the white fowl still had plenty of personality.

“He was such a character… He was very vocal when anybody tried to approach him, including other birds,” she said.

After his therapy, the bird was ready to return home. Masked boobies are a pelagic species native to the Caribbean. The furthest north in the Gulf they are found is typically the Florida Keys.

Needless to say, the bird was a long ways from home and no way to get there.

Destin resident Jack Anthony heard about the ECWR mission to get the bird home and offered a ride to South Florida aboard a private jet with Chip Crunk, the president and CEO of RJ Young, an office equipment company out of Tennessee.

“Anthony found out about our need for plane transport through one of our volunteers,” refuge volunteer Deb Edwards wrote in an email to The Log. “They were already scheduled to fly to here, drop off a passenger then go to Marathon, Fla., in the Keys and were more than happy to take our bird for us.”

This past weekend, she prepped the bird for flight and delivered him to the men at the Destin Airport. As of Monday afternoon, the booby was eating and doing great according to volunteers in South Florida.

After a few days at the Key West Wildlife Refuge, the masked booby will be ferried back his native lands in the Dry Tortugas where he will be released to the wild.  “It’s very rewarding that we could help him get back home,” Kadletz said.
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