Birds should live in nature, not with people

Wild animals have a place in nature. They are perfectly and one hundred percent adapted to such a life and any deviation from nature is stressful and difficult for them. With that in mind, when she starts taking care of them, Bjanka Prakljačić from Podgorica approaches every bird that her fellow citizens bring her or finds on her own.

And that care takes place in a small room and on the terrace of the family apartment, with boundless energy and Bianca's determination to make sacrifices - all for the sake of a successful flight to freedom for every bird that arrives at her place.

Getting a wild bird ready for its wild life again is not easy.

"Successful recovery of wild birds, which implies release into the wild, is terribly complex. Not only is he looking for knowledge and experience in the smallest needs and biology of the bird, but he is also looking for special equipment, food... There are a hundred factors - species, age, health condition of the bird... and then, depending on that, you need to prepare accommodation, suitable food .

Although rare, it still happens that birds fall out of the nest prematurely. People often find such birds on the ground and want to help and save them. Bjanka and the Center for the Protection and Study of Birds (CZIP) often suggest to citizens not to take young wild birds, not to take them home, but to return them to a higher branch and wait for their parents to take care of them again. However, many do not follow this advice and the baby birds end up with Bianka.

“When you get a young bird to raise, it's literally like having a baby and a premature baby to take care of. She needs exactly the right temperature, substrate, lighting, food of the right humidity, softness, temperature, you need to know what to do if her stomach gets upset, if she has parasites, if she's sick, further, you shouldn't talk around them, they shouldn't get used to hands, to human faces,” she said.

When the bird starts to fly, Bianka adds - there is no cage.

"With the bird, as the mother does, one goes into nature, the bird learns to hunt." They run after her all day. If it is an owl, he keeps vigil with it all night. She should not be denied flight and freedom, just as a child should not be prevented from walking," said the girl, who is a real first aid for birds.

Bianka says that there are birds that require less and those that require more care. In any case, she adds, whoever wants to take care of it must know everything about the type of bird they are caring for.

“Here is an example of a large gazebo. Up to a certain age, the birds of the big bower eat only spiders, later only caterpillars and only the entrails of caterpillars, and later their parents introduce them to various insects. If you were to have a young great hornbill, you would first have to make a suitable nest, ensure that it is constantly 37 degrees Celsius, with a humidity of at least 60 percent, and then manage food and know when to give it. When you collect caterpillars, you need to know which species are safe and which are poisonous, and just one leg of a grasshopper that is too hard for an adult bird can lead to its death. If you give too little food, the bird will die, if you give too much, it will get blocked and it will die again. If it's too cold, the same, if it's too hot, the same."

When taking care of the baby birds, Bianka practically does not see people, because the birds require 24-hour attention.

"The mother bird devotes herself to the young 24 hours a day, because the bird requires such attention. If I go out somewhere for an hour, the temperature in the nest will drop, a bottle of water will cool down and when I come back the bird will be ready... The recovery of a wild bird means that you must take over its lifestyle, not pet it. The bird should be trained to live in nature, not to live with people," she said, adding that recovery without release into nature is not recovery, but keeping an animal for a hobby.

Aware that people sometimes believe too much in what they see on television, Bianka warns that one must be careful when caring for wild animals and birds. As one of the examples, he cites the film "Storm boy", which describes the miraculous rescue of a pelican and its companionship with a boy.

"That film shows something impossible, which is the release of pelicans after recovery. A pelican can only learn to hunt with its own kind and any pelican raised in captivity cannot survive in the wild," she says, adding that the story, which depicts the friendship between a bird and a boy, is set in Australia, where the film takes place. , was the reason for the theft of a large number of young pelicans to keep as pets.

"Each bird is condemned to torture and certain death, and the future owners will feel what it means to feed a wild animal, how it is laborious, expensive and, in the case of pelicans, very dirty and 'smelly' work. There is a bit of romance in wildlife rehabilitation, if done right. It is a big responsibility, hard work, renunciation, refraining from making stupid and mistakes that will later cost the animal its life. Every mistake is the death of an animal in nature... And I repeat, a wild animal is not a human, if it grows up without fear of people, without knowing how to survive alone, you have literally already killed it yourself," says Bianka, adding that a wild animal in captivity has only a shadow of its wild form.

She adds that the "cute" movies about animals that are available on the Internet show unnatural and bad behavior towards animals or the animals themselves, and that based on them, people get a completely wrong image of wild animals.

"They look at them as 'quasi people' who need to be hugged, kissed, dressed, who play ball, drink from a bottle... The truth is completely different".

Bird treatment is best learned from practice

Bianka is a biologist by profession, but she says that her formal education is not very helpful when it comes to caring for birds.

“Wild bird recovery is taught, species by species, for each bird. I gathered that knowledge from all sides. From people, from literature, from the Internet and experience. "Last year, I started writing everything down in one notebook, because it is necessary to have so much information that I started to forget myself," she said.

The problem for her is that not all funds for bird care are available in Montenegro.

"For example, around the world, small birds are kept in incubators, which are made just for that. I don't have that, but still manage with hot water bottles, reptile warmers, specially made boxes. Improvisation has become the mother of success".

Her activities are partially supported by CZIP, but Bjanka mostly bears the costs of recovering the birds herself.

Because of a selfie, an owl is sentenced to death

Bianka suggests that citizens who find a bird in need of help call her or the Center for the Protection and Study of Birds.

He says that any unprofessional recovery attempt is fatal for the birds and adds that even the well-intentioned provision of water and food can be fatal for the bird.

"There are many cases when giving water or food causes irreparable damage. A bird can inhale water or food, some birds are not allowed to drink water at all when they are young, some are not allowed to take water or food unless they are warmed to the right temperature. People often give bread, or yogurt, something salty, even cheese, tea sausage, salami, burek... one such meal, and then we fight for the life of that bird".

As one example of giving inappropriate food to birds, she cites the case of a swallow, which was given bread, as a result of which the bird's intestines burst and the swallow bled to death.

A common mistake people make with birds, she adds, is to take birds that have naturally left the nest but are not yet flying.

"The most common victims are sparrows, magpies, and owls. Although the parents are nearby, people kidnap these birds and make us unnecessary work".

Bjanka also advises not to photograph birds using a flash and adds that a young owl she cared for went blind because of it.