European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - December 30, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse By s10 mood associated Pressi t is hard to pinpoint isl when a Man Doc pcs to Luton his Back Yard into a repair shop for wrecked Birds. For Leonard Soucy it probably came 20 years ago when an Anonymous someone like an unwed Mother abandoning her Newborn in a Basket a i Ina Church door. Loll a Rod tailed. Hav a with a broken Wing in a cardboard Box on his front Sloop. I was a Challenge Soucy could t say no to. To still can t thai is Why his current Back Yard in Miltin Glon n.j., is an intensive care facility of assorted cages some the sue Olbo cars in which he endeavours to restore to the wild squadrons of sick and injured owls Hawks eagles Falcons and selected songbirds and the occasional lame Duck. In earthly terms appropriate to a pirate s Parrot Soucy Sells How Birds have taken Over his Home his Bank account his Job and even his wife. Diane. Lii rdc have eaten me lip. They be consumed my i hese Are the Birds who came to dinner As it were Lor whose convalescence Soucy flies in 10.000 crickets a week lion a Tennessee breeder millions of grub Worms irom California. Georgia and 150.000 rodents a year1 1 have 10.000 meal Worms Here r Ghl now. And they re Juril snacks exclaims South to whom Sollo Voce is an Abo Marlion. "1 in Cost $100.000 last Yeti. Mho food was t donated it would have Cost $250,000. Nijst Onu rat costs s2.5q. A Nio Iise 15 is 09, Bui i Haw id do it. To one Obe is going to Soucy May have As Many As 500 recovering Birds at a time in his cubic Lee o cages Totero s a Tinct owl on the mend trim entanglement Wilh a kilo string. A Golden Eagle with a broken win Hawks Shol by what Soucy Calls unprintable slobs orphaned Birds raised irom infancy. An Oriole thai will Winter Over because it lid not recover Unhul alter the last flight South. Soucy still tries to Sandwich his profession As a sell employed tool and Oto a i Lorn maker around a Hobby Hal was Onecca Sopwith Camel and is now a b-52. This sometimes requires him logo to his paying Job at 2am. There Are emergency Calls at All hours. A Bird gels hit Falls out of the nest. It does t belong to the police nol the dog Warden. Does t. Belong to anybody. So they say. Call Soucy " a screech owl Hies Down a Chimney and catches lire. Call Soucy. A Goshawk crashes through a picture window. And lands dazed on a Coulee table. Call Soucy. There s nobody else to pass them to the Bud slops hic last year Soucy s busiest yet 1,435 wild Birds ended up on his door slip this included 240 raptors Tho carnivorous Birds he specialises in. About half recovered and were returned id Iho wild repair is not cheap. To do an Ingramo Dushary fusion of a Bird s Wing Bona with a pin can Cost $400 Lor the operation. Post of care can approach $1.000-". Fortunately Soucy has two understanding veterinarians nearby ors. Andrew major in Plain old and Ken Jacobsen in basking Ridge who donate their surgical skills we can keep a Bird alive. 90 percent of the time. Bui can we restore in 00 percent the Bird won t make ii in it s Only 75 percent. So we keep about 100 Lor Educ National acc Luis at schools and such and Ruthc Nizic Iho rest.". Soucy s preoccupation with raptors no competent moral Hun Lei shed Hawks and oils the bleeping stabs h 5 interest was piqued year 5 ago when he read an. Article in Audubon Magazine on Hawks so to and Dune went out to Hawk Mountain in was Lorn Pennsylvania to see the All migration when thousands of raptors May Fly by in. A Day Riding the thermals South i could t imagine 1,000 Hawks in the whole world. Age 14 the stars and stripes intensive care sick Birds i Lac to. Ify n a i a a i Jav in if i of Fly ,1. -3ks,i i to or in in it 1 of we 1 to i. H _ a a snowy owl with one Wing at the Raptor Trust. Much less overhead Gunnis used to shoot hundreds of Birds in a Day at Hawk Mountain us to try their aim this ended in 1934 when a wealthy woman from new York. Rosalia Edge acquired the Mountain As a Refuge Lor the Birds and birdwatchers Capo Way an even bigger migrating Junction at Tho lip of new Jersey was another gunnery Range this stopped when Tho Federal government outlawed shooting raptors in 1372. By then Soucy and Diane had been in the Bird repair business for Lour years. They had rehabilitated Hal firs red Tail and released in. One thing led to another so icy bought a Home on Semi Rural land next to lha great swamp wildlife Refuge in milling on. It started put As a backyard Hobby a gesture to right some of the wings committed by the biggest Raptor of them All Man. The stupidity of Man nol doing Beiler gradually enraged me. All things on Earth Are valuable to us because they help stabilize the darn thing t was raised to hink Man owned the world we be nol to get out of this idea because we re a part of in it s All our world. We be got to take care of Momma he had no illusions about in being easy. Historically this country has a love Halo relationship Wilh raptors. To Pul the Bald Eagle on our National Seal but there used to be a Bounty on them. People Don t care i a Robin Hills a worm. Bui it s Vhal s being killed thai matters a lox thai kills a Chicken is a bad Fox. Ii it kills a Snake it s a Good of to Hunters a Hawk that killed a Rabbit was a bad thing so they killed the Hawk and then the Rabbs. Farmers though raptors were vermin but very very very few Hawks will kill chickens but that s a hard sell.". Pigeon intellect pro by Malcolm w. Browne new York times the hum3le Pigeon scarcely noticed As d pecks a livelihood 1rom its sidewalk environment May have More in common with human thinkers than generally realized. In Boh Avrial psychology experiments at the University of Towa. Or Edward a. Wasserman and his colleagues have turned up what to called surprising. Evidence hat Iho conceptual abilities of pigeons Ara More advanced than hitherto the Pigeon mind moreover probably olfers important clues As to How the human mind evolved and Lun Lions Wasserman said in an interview. " -.-. Darwin raised the possibility of a Conli Noily in meals development irom animals to human beings he said and it dec plainly looks As though he was in a series of related experiments the Iowa group is investigating the ability of pigeons to assign pictures of objects to such logical categories As cats or " v.". Y altar being familiarized with the testing apparatus if pigeons respond to questions by pecking at keys representing possible answers a computer controls and records ail experiments an when a Pigeon pecks a Correct answer the Bird is automatically rewarded with a Pinch of Grain. Pigeons commit new images to memory at lightning Speed. Was Herman said but the remark Abt ii Nisthal they organize images of things into the same logical categories Hal human beings use when f conceptualize " experiments Vass Crinan his Lorimer graduate student or. Racsh 3. Shalt and others in the Iowa group have built upon Pigeon research begun 1960s of of. I Clad j. Hwy Nislein of Harvard University. Herrnstein and other investigators have shown thai pigeons can distinguish Between images Hal contain. Some Type of object and images that do not. Wasserman carried tins discovery a by
