Ten shot, one survived: Volunteers fight for heron in Volgograd

A white heron, injured after a hunt, was brought to Volgograd from Astrakhan in extremely critical condition. The bird, initially rescued by volunteers from a neighboring city, refuses to eat, suffers from a bacterial infection, but the head of the rehabilitation center in Volgograd Oblast does not lose hope.

As told to V1.RU by Alina Yerina, head of the «Bird Island» rehabilitation center, the bird harmed by hunters arrived in Volgograd on January 23.

«Volunteers told us that the ban on white herons has been lifted; they have been removed from the Red Book as not of concern, and immediately such a case came in,» says Alina Yerina. «A woman called our girls in Astrakhan and said that 10 birds were shot during a hunt, one survived. It was a revelation for me to learn that some individuals eat not only swans but also herons. Unfortunate people are starving. We always have an extremely negative attitude towards hunters because most birds come to us shot, even Red Book-listed sea eagles. And although they say that someone controls something among hunters, we have nothing to love them for yet.»

Alina Yerina describes the heron«s condition as unstable and concerning:

«Her head is pierced, her neck shot, her leg broken, and we haven»t even taken an X-ray yet because in this condition she simply won«t survive it. Very emaciated, she was with people for quite some time who either shot her or saved her—it»s unclear. They fed her soaked cat food. She has terrible diarrhea and a bacterial infection. It«s the whole bad set.»

However, despite everything, there is hope that the heron can be released this spring. True, before that, it will have to go through a difficult rehabilitation path.

«Now we are injecting her, struggling with food because everything we give her, she successfully spits out, and we have to start over again, contriving… Her condition is still unstable and the prognosis is cautious. We will try very, very hard to make it work. If all goes well and we recover, there is every chance of release in the spring, so we will fight.»

Recall that earlier, residents of the village of Novy Rogachik noticed a lame swan that wandered for two weeks near the crossing over the Chervlenaya River in attempts to find food. Concerned residents asked volunteers to help save the poor bird before it died from the cold or fell victim to starving animals. Then the swan got stuck in the middle of a water body due to ice. Saving the swan was achieved by a married couple, thanks to whose efforts the bird ended up in Volgograd, where it even acquired a «foster» child.