The Bird Island Rehabilitation Center has been operating in Volgograd for more than four years. Its creators are volunteers led by German teacher Alina Yerina. All of them at one time kept wild animals and birds overexposed and saved their lives at home.
"We have about 200 residents, those who cannot be released into their natural habitat," said the head of the Wild Animal Rehabilitation Center, Alina Erina. "We are also engaged in environmental education, the puppet theater "Bird Island" tells children about important environmental problems in performances."
Each story about the wards of the center is unique. Who has not been nursed here, and crows, and boars, and hedgehogs, and owls, and hares. And, of course, eagles
"Tisha the eagle, who was shot right on a tree, froze into the ice," Alina shares her memories, "the bird began to have pneumonia, after removing the pellets, the eagle suffered a stroke, then complete blindness set in. I walked with her in my arms, fed her, putting food in her beak. I called her "my chicken." And we did it! Tisha got up on her paws, managed to regain sight in one eye! She lives with her relatives in an aviary and when I say, "my chickens," she already runs to me."
The volunteers of the center sometimes do the impossible - not just to get out terminally ill birds and animals, but also to return them back to the wild. Volgograd television journalists told about one of these stories.
At the beginning of summer, a local resident discovered an emaciated grown-up chick that was sitting by the road. Through volunteers, the bird was transferred to the Bird Island Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. Already there, the bird's nickname was Baby. This summer, a pretty grown-up Baby got on the wing and went to the floodplain lakes near the Volga. The example of a large and proud bird was followed by a small Herald tern, a heron, 18 falcons, two eared owls and an obscure Plasticine.
"In April, they brought us a very small owl, a down jacket. Such babies need food, warmth and peace of mind. They can't be left on the ground," says Alina Erin. - That's why we took the baby, fed him minced meat from mice, put him on a hot water bottle. From minced meat, they gradually switched to cutting all the same rodents, and in May, for the first time, the Plasticine cut up a rodent himself."
In the "Bird Island", not only volunteers help the wards, but also the guests themselves. For example, disabled birds, which will never be able to live in the wild, are hooked up to young chicks for training. According to the specialists of the Center, it is the adults who help future graduates to learn everything: how to hunt, how to behave with other individuals of your species, how to be afraid of humans.
"When releasing, we use ornithological maps with the habitats of certain species marked on them. We look at the distance from human habitation, the availability of a food base, we consult with specialists, field biologists," Alina continues. - The Plasticine was brought from the Volga-Akhtuba floodplain. It was there that his release was completely successful. And he came home!"
The 2024 season was very difficult for Bird Island, the volunteers say. The phone just melted from hundreds of calls, there were a lot of extremely difficult cases.
"This year we have conducted more than 400 editions. Falcons, white-tailed eagle, hawks, raccoon dogs, сorsak, hedgehogs, bats were returned to freedom," Alina told the audience.
And, the award for volunteers from the Wild Animal Rehabilitation Center did not take long to wait - now Bird Island is an official member of the Russian Biological Society.
Photos from Alina Yerina's personal archive.