The Story of Ripley

The story of Ripley, or 2021- 0753, is the story of an underdog. After being attacked by a dog, he was brought in as a nestling/fledgling. The radius/ulna on the left wing was exposed and a large portion was unviable bone. Our veterinarian on staff removed a little over 1/3 of his ulna and determined that he would likely not be releasable because of the amount of bone that was removed. It was decided that because of how severe his injuries were and his age, patient 2021-0753 would become an ambassador. Staff and students fed him by hand every 30 minutes, practiced having him step up, and even taught him to “kiss” during trainings.

As Ripley got older, he lost some of his comfortability with people and being handled. It became more challenging to maintain his training between semesters when his handlers were on break. Students and mentors noticed that when he was out, he seemed to have very little issue flying around.

When the spring semester came around, students were assigned to work with Ripley as a presentation ambassador. As more time went on, Ripley seemed to be flying well and was less and less fond of being handled.

After spending some time in one of our songbird flight enclosures with some other songbird patients, we determined that Ripley’s social skills with other birds were still intact and his flight muscles built.

Ripley was packed up and taken back to where he was found by the MWRC director, one of his devoted handlers, and one of our amazing long-term volunteers. Ripley’s release was the event of the neighborhood. People gathered to hear about his story and watch him be returned to the wild.