Since , the has taken in more than 1,800 injured or orphaned wild animals from the region.
On a regular day, the local SPCA gets about 40 to 50 animals. On the day after Beryl hit, they got over 700 in 24 hours 鈥� and even over a week later, more animals keep on coming.
The SPCA is now working to rehabilitate the animals, including a colony of nearly 350 egrets blown out of their nests.
For more on the rehabilitation efforts, Sharon Schmalz, Houston SPCA鈥檚 wildlife center administrator and former executive director, spoke to Texas Standard.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: What kind of animals have you taken in? Tell us more.
Sharon Schmalz: A lot of cattle egrets. Unfortunately, it was a rookery where they had been nesting, and they were just devastated. When we got there on the scene, it was just so sad to see that many, many hundreds were dead. We actually collected about 350 of them and brought them back to our campus to start giving them, you know, fluids and stuff. So, it was quite traumatic.
We also took in a lot, like 233, Mississippi kites. And their populations have just moved up into our area between Austin and Houston, so this was really devastating on these birds. So, we had a lot of kites.
We also took in mourning doves, squirrels, songbirds and, you know, other herons like yellow-crowned night herons. But the largest populations were the cattle egrets and the Mississippi kite. So, it鈥檚 crazy.
禄 MORE:
Let me ask you about the egrets there. How do you deal with the rehab portion of this? I mean, are they all held in one area? And you feed them, and they stay with you for how long? I just can鈥檛 even imagine.
Yeah, we couldn鈥檛 either. It was just amazing to have that many come in at one time, and we have to, you know, triage each one of them and check them for injuries because these guys were thrown down on the ground.
I mean, it was devastating to them, and they鈥檙e all different ages. They鈥檙e not all exactly the same age. And, some of them need heat 鈥� they鈥檙e still babies that don鈥檛 have enough feathers on them to keep them warm. So we鈥檝e got a little incubator set up for them. We had a whole huge area of incubators.
Some of them were almost ready to go outside, but we wanted to make sure they were stable before we moved them out. So yeah, it is quite a logistical nightmare when you get that many at one time, but we鈥檝e got such a great group of volunteers. Our staff, we got on it right away knowing that we had to give them some help immediately.
How long do you have to care for these egrets?
Some of them will have at least three to four weeks. Probably the littlest ones I鈥檇 say four weeks.
Of course, on top of these birds, you鈥檝e got all the dogs and cats that you more commonly deal with, I would imagine, but now so many. How do you deal with taking care of the large numbers of animals, and where are you now? Do you have any sense of what the population numbers are?
No, I don鈥檛 actually. I just know we go out there and feed and feed and feed and then clean and clean, but yeah, it keeps us busy. We鈥檝e called in extra volunteers and stuff. Now the number is actually 1,800 that we鈥檝e taken in, just over a week.
We got a bald eagle. We have a baby brown pelican that was blown off an island that citizens were finally able to gather. So, we鈥檙e still getting animals in. So, it鈥檚 amazing. It鈥檚 just truly amazing.
What should people do if they come across an injured animal? How can people help the animal? How can they help the SPCA?
Yeah. I mean, we have a lot of good information on our website on because sometimes, you know, outside of hurricanes, sometimes babies are on the ground, and they鈥檙e like teenagers, and so we try to get people to wait.
But, there鈥檚 a lot of good information at that they can go to, and there鈥檚 an so they can find out, 鈥淪hould I pick this up should I not?鈥�
But, you know, obviously, after a big storm like this, parents weren鈥檛 even around. They were blown away. You know, they鈥檙e just totally lost, and so in this particular case, we definitely needed to take care of them.
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