There were no broken bones, yet he couldn't fly. He was eating on his own, yet he was loosing weight. Nothing seemed to fit with this Great Egret – until we felt his abdomen. There we found a round, unmistakable lump.
Great Egrets (Ardea alba) are summer visitors to New York, coming here to breed and raise their young. You see them wading in fresh-water lakes, salt-water marshes, canals and even ditches all around the city. Because they hunt in shallow water, egrets and other waterbirds often arrive at the Wild Bird Fund Rehabilitation Center in Manhattan after having eaten old fishing lures, hooks, and sometimes entangled in fishing wire. We couldn't be sure what the Egret had swallowed until he went through surgery.
Dr. Pilny from the Center for Avian and Exotic Medicine lead the surgery and removed the lump from our patient. What we thought had been something he swallowed, was actually an infestation of worms that had taken over the Egret's abdomen and was eating his food. At almost 35 percent of his body weight, those worms had not only been starving him, but had made him too weak and heavy to fly.