Student helps rehabilitate American kestrel before release at Lane Stadium

It’s a story with a happy ending. But it didn’t start off that way.

In July, a young American kestrel, the smallest species of falcon in North America, fell from its nest in Lane Stadium. After rehabilitation, with the help of College of Natural Resources and Environment students, it was successfully released near Lane Stadium in late September.

The Southwest Virginia Wildlife Center in Roanoke stepped in to help rehabilitate the kestrel. The center is one of the largest rehabilitation facilities in Virginia, treating more than 2,700 animals annually. As the only wildlife hospital to cover the western half of Virginia and one of three wildlife veterinary hospitals in the commonwealth that can treat threatened and endangered species, the center serves as a regional hub for wildlife in need.

At her summer internship, Gabby Gorman, a junior in fish and wildlife conservation from Farmington, Connecticut, helped with the kestrel’s rehabilitation. The American kestrel is experiencing a population decline in the New England and mid-Atlantic regions with estimates of a population drop rate of 1.4 percent per year, according to the center.

“When the kestrel was younger, every day, I would take it out of its crate using raptor handling techniques I learned at the center to clean its crate, refill its water, and replace its perch, if necessary,” Gorman said. “Almost all birds need mirrors in their enclosures, especially when young, so it was important to keep the kestrel’s mirror clean so that it was able to see itself and feel as though there was another kestrel with it.”

The work the center does wouldn’t be possible without interns such as Gorman, said Chester Leonard ’09, executive director of the center.

“Gabby was essential to the rehabilitation and release of numerous patients that we admitted this summer including the American kestrel that was released at Lane Stadium,” Leonard said. “The American kestrel population is in rapid decline, which makes this particular release so special, but even more importantly, we're helping sustain their population here locally in Southwest Virginia.”

When birds are young, they must be fed by hand using hemostats, and a mask must cover the feeder's whole face to prevent the bird from imprinting on the caretaker. It is also important to limit interactions with the raptors to reduce their stress, which can impact any animal’s healing process.

“As the kestrel grew up and was moved outside, it went through what we call ‘mouse school,’ where the kestrel could learn to hunt and catch on its own,” Gorman said. “We would also ‘fly’ the kestrel around a flight pen to exercise it and get it into good shape for release. Our raptors go through ‘mouse school’ and exercise time before release to ensure their preparedness to return to the wild.”

Gorman went into wildlife conservation with the hopes of pursuing a career in wildlife rehabilitation and medicine, and this internship helped her to solidify her interest in this field.

“Many of my classes require me to accurately ID different animals, so in working mostly with birds, I got pretty good at being able to identify the species at all stages of life, which is incredibly beneficial in these types of classes,” Gorman said. “I also created a dichotomous key for all the small mammals of Virginia for my experiential learning credit, for which I did a lot of research on the characteristics of small mammals and what key identifiers anyone could use if they need help IDing an animal. This project will absolutely come in handy for when I take mammalogy.”