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October 05, 2007
Cockatiel on the Road to Recovery
A friend of Natures Corner Magazine sent this to me via Email, I have no reference for it. ~sue
A cockatiel that narrowly escaped death in a city trash compactor last month is doing well and expected to make a full recovery, Animal Control Officer Charles Theobald said this week.
He said caretakers had to feed the small, pretty bird via a tube to get it back on the road to health.
"It's still being rehabilitated," Theobald said. "It's gaining more weight and getting healthier.
"The bird's been doing great ever since that day."
The day to which Theobald refers is Sept. 6, when workers on a city garbage truck came across a plastic trash bag by the curb on Mathews Avenue.
Inside the bag were a female cockatiel -- cage and all -- and its partner lying dead by its side.
Had city garbage collector Shawn Caron and his trash-truck partner not gotten curious and opened the bag, it would have been tossed into the packing compartment and crushed.
Caron, 19, said "something told him" to open the bags along that stretch of Mathews Avenue.
"We opened the bag and it started chirping; it wanted out real bad," Caron said at the time. "It started squawking the minute we ripped that bag open."
Waterville police said there would not be criminal charges brought because it is not known how the other bird died. The homeowner reportedly told officers that she thought both birds were dead when she put the bag out for the regular trash collection.
Theobald this week said the surviving bird remains at the same undisclosed location to which it was taken the day it was found. He said the facility specializes in taking care of birds.
Theobald said he has been asked not to divulge the name or the location of the facility for fear that too many people would contact the place.
After its ordeal, animal welfare workers had trouble getting the cockatiel to eat, Theobald said.
"At first it wasn't eating," he said. "It was given food, like baby food, through a tube. It got healthier that way and then it started eating on its own. It's eating like crazy now."
Theobald said the bird is going to need more time to recover before authorities can begin thinking about adoption.
"It's going to need a lot more attention," he said. "It's still very skittish just because of the incident it went through. They really don't know when yet, but it will be sometime in the near future."
Posted by sue at October 5, 2007 04:38 AM