Category
🐳
AnimalsTranscript
00:00 A painted turtle takes a trip to the eye doctor.
00:07 I don't know if I've ever taken the eye out of a turtle before.
00:12 So, I don't know if we can even do that.
00:15 A raccoon's run in with a peanut butter jar.
00:18 It's great knowing that you can't bite.
00:21 Keep her locked.
00:24 And the prickly business of examining a porcupine.
00:28 Ow! Can you pull that quill out of my hand? Thank you.
00:35 It's known as the city within a park.
00:38 The Greater Toronto Area is home to one of the most diverse urban wildlife populations in North America.
00:44 Here, more than 6 million busy humans live alongside 350 different species of wild animals.
00:53 When wildlife clashes with urban life, it's usually the animals who lose.
00:58 That's when Toronto Wildlife Centre steps in.
01:01 Saving animals one day at a time.
01:04 It's summertime, and that's high season for injured turtles.
01:19 Female turtles leave the safety of their swampy homes in search of a sandy place to lay their eggs.
01:25 Too often, what they find is the sandy shoulder of a highway.
01:30 And it's not too hard to imagine what happens then.
01:33 Between 50 to 60 injured turtles arrive at Toronto Wildlife Centre every year.
01:39 Our next one is a painted turtle.
01:41 Aaron Archer, one of the centre's wildlife rehabilitation supervisors, is consulting with veterinarian Dr. Heather Reed about a painted turtle with a complicated injury.
01:52 Presume hit by a car. There's a sound lying in the road.
01:55 Okay.
01:56 Aaron is worried that the turtle may have lost the use of one eye.
02:00 There's a couple minor scuffs on the plaster on, nothing that looks all that severe.
02:03 Some blood from the mouth. The right eye was bulgy. I'm not sure if it's intact.
02:08 There's a lot of swelling around the eyes.
02:10 So is that one of our big concerns then, the eye?
02:12 That would be.
02:13 Okay.
02:14 Turtles may be slower than most patients, but that doesn't make them any easier to examine.
02:21 So turtles, when they're scared, will oftentimes retract their limbs and their head into their shell, which can make it a little bit difficult to take a look at their eyes.
02:30 So hopefully she'll be cooperative.
02:33 So we know that this is a lady turtle.
02:36 Painted turtles, you can actually tell the gender based on the claws on their feet here.
02:41 The males tend to have longer claws than the females.
02:44 However, we have x-rayed her and we see that she is gravid.
02:47 Yes, she said gravid. That means pregnant in turtle.
02:52 This is the time of year when they're on the move, trying to find a suitable place for them to lay their eggs, to bury them under the ground in sandy soil.
03:00 And so they're often, they're at risk of being hit by cars at this time of year.
03:05 And so this is actually where she was found on a road, upside down with her legs in the air and had an injury to her head.
03:12 And what we're really concerned about now is this eye.
03:15 And she's opening her mouth okay. We're not worried about jaw issues or problems with her.
03:19 Okay. Excellent. Her ear looks okay.
03:23 Just tilt her a little bit so we can see that eye.
03:29 Okay. Well, it does look like the eye has been quite damaged, been ruptured.
03:33 And it looks like the globe has been, like the actual rampart of the eye has leaked out the fluid that's inside the eye.
03:39 And so this is an eye then that is not viable. This eye will not be able to see in the future.
03:44 And this will be okay for this turtle in that she can survive with only one eye.
03:49 The question is, do we leave the eye in place?
03:52 Eventually that eye will, you know, if there's no complications, would shrink down.
03:56 But it's quite a painful injury. And so the best solution probably to have her looked at by an ophthalmologist.
04:04 He'll be able to look at it a lot more closely with his equipment and make a decision regarding surgery.
04:09 Her head is slightly tilted. Is that because you're holding her shell?
04:13 While turtles can survive in the wild with only one eye, a head injury is a much more serious problem.
04:21 We also worry about damage to her brain or damage to her ear or something that will affect her balance.
04:27 I mean, something else that would affect her survival in the wild.
04:30 So, you know, some of this may be just holding her head in different positions because she can't see on the left side.
04:37 And maybe she's just kind of compensating by turning her head like that.
04:42 She'll need to be monitored for a head injury.
04:45 But first things first, this painted turtle is about to go on a day trip to the eye doctor.
04:52 OK, well, I think what we'll do is we'll put her back in her enclosure for now.
04:56 We'll contact the ophthalmologist and see if we can get her in scene quickly.
05:02 Decide about the eye surgery and we'll keep her on her pain medication for sure.
05:06 But I'm pretty optimistic about this.
05:09 Meanwhile, Andrew White and Stacey Freeman of Toronto Wildlife Centre's rescue team have just received an urgent call from the hotline manager, Julia Pytrias.
05:19 I actually have a situation going on.
05:22 It's a mama raccoon with a peanut butter jar stuck on her head.
05:27 She's got four babies there with her, but she can't get the jar off.
05:30 OK, awesome. So that's the address?
05:33 Yep.
05:34 We'll be on our way there now.
05:35 OK, awesome.
05:36 What is it?
05:37 A raccoon caught in a peanut butter jar may be a funny cliche to some, but for the raccoon, it's a matter of life and death.
05:46 All right, let's go. I'm going to turn around.
05:50 On a hot summer day, this could result in severe heat stroke, dehydration or starvation.
05:56 Stacey and Andrew need to find her fast before it's too late.
06:01 Cut him out. Make sure you don't catch his leg.
06:04 Fortunately, it's not too late for this lucky guy.
06:08 A concerned resident called the hotline centre to report a limping porcupine on his property.
06:14 As soon as the porcupine arrived at the centre, his treatment began.
06:19 The medical team performed surgery to help drain the wound, but this injury is persistent.
06:25 So not only did he get rescued, he got an enclosure built just for him.
06:31 And it's a good thing too.
06:33 This porcupine has had a nasty gash to deal with.
06:36 He's had an abscess that's been very resilient for a couple of weeks now.
06:40 And we were hoping that our last treatment of it took care of it.
06:43 We built him this cage specifically so that we could monitor him here.
06:47 Lisa Fosco, the wildlife rehabilitation manager at Toronto Wildlife Centre, and head vet Dr. Heather Reed,
06:53 are hoping that the antibiotics he's been given have successfully cleared up his infection.
06:59 But the only way to know is to get up close and personal.
07:04 So maybe we can just take a peek, and if he fights us or does anything, then we'll just stop and anesthetize him?
07:10 Yeah.
07:11 Does that sound like a good plan?
07:13 The plan is to make a quick determination and get out of his way.
07:18 With all of our cages and all of our animals that are being contained,
07:21 we want to be very careful so that we are not in their space,
07:24 and we are not bothering them with our presence any more than need be.
07:27 It does definitely decrease the stress level for the animal, and we want him to be as least stressed as possible.
07:33 The other day he came out of the crate, grabbed a carrot, went back in the crate,
07:37 turned around and sat up eating it with his hands.
07:39 It was--oh my God, it was so cute.
07:43 I was just happy to see him upright.
07:45 It's good. It's nice to see him outside. He must be so much happier out here.
07:48 Oh, he's sitting in a pool of urine.
07:50 Ow! Can you pull that quill out of my hand?
07:53 Thank you.
07:56 What's that?
07:58 Plug. And there's pus.
08:01 Okay, let's knock him down.
08:03 The goal at Toronto Wildlife Centre is to return an animal to the wild as quickly as possible,
08:09 but they still have to be certain that he's fully recovered.
08:13 Well, it's not quite resolved.
08:15 There's still a little bit of residual infection,
08:18 so we want to knock him down and get a better look at that, figure out what to do next,
08:21 because he's got to be completely cleared up before we send him to our other location to go outside.
08:27 So in the other location he'll be able to climb up trees, and it will be a lot harder to manage him there.
08:33 So for now, he's not going anywhere.
08:36 An infection means a weaker animal, and being weak in the wild can quickly turn into being dead.
08:47 Once a week, people put out their garbage, their recycling, and their leftover food for pickup.
08:53 Nothing can be more tempting to a hungry, urbanized wild animal.
08:59 The rescue team from Toronto Wildlife Centre has arrived in this residential area to save a raccoon
09:05 who has managed to get her entire head stuck inside a plastic food container,
09:11 specifically a peanut butter jar.
09:14 Can I go around and figure out which house it is?
09:17 The problem is, they can't find her.
09:20 So we're really concerned because we hear that there's a mother raccoon,
09:24 the mother of four little ones, who's somehow got some sort of container over its head.
09:31 Likely a recycling day, you know, was the other day, and it went in for a quick lick,
09:36 some peanut butter or something, and thunk, it's right over its head.
09:40 So it can breathe still, but restricted.
09:43 And obviously, it can't eat, it can't drink, it can't do anything having this container over its head.
09:49 So our hope was to get here and it just be sitting in the tree,
09:53 but it sounds like it's moved on with the family since, but...
09:59 I just thought I heard something.
10:01 Often they'll think that, oh, maybe it's rabid or has some sort of disease, that's why it's coming to me.
10:07 No, it might just be coming for handouts.
10:09 So not a good thing to feed the animals, but also helpful for us if it's already gone on,
10:14 because we can lure them in and sometimes catch them that way.
10:18 I hear suspicious sounds over here.
10:21 Yep, there she is, there she is. We found her. Bring the other net.
10:32 Let's not worry about cage right now, let's just get her.
10:38 [Dramatic music]
10:40 She's right there, flat, right there.
10:50 Okay, I'm going to go back here and jump down in with her, and her only escape route will be out through this way.
10:56 So yeah, you keep one of everything, I keep one of everything.
11:00 Lots of running around.
11:04 Yeah, I will get her for sure. Okay, here we go.
11:07 Coming, coming, coming!
11:11 Got her!
11:15 Stay down, girl.
11:18 She's really fighting.
11:21 I like to lift her up right here.
11:24 So remember, she can't bite because her head's covered.
11:27 Just be real careful, huh?
11:29 Because she's really smart.
11:32 It's great knowing that she can't bite.
11:34 Keep her locked.
11:36 Comfortable with her?
11:41 Yep.
11:42 Because she's going to fight as soon as I let go.
11:44 Twist this once more.
11:45 Okay.
11:48 Just get her down somewhere on grass and keep her pinned.
11:52 I'm going to let go, it's very heavy.
11:54 Okay.
11:55 [Dramatic music]
11:59 [Dramatic music]
12:01 Yeah, so normally we would probably take her, but because she has babies, we're going to just remove it and let her go right here, right now.
12:13 Just see what we were talking about.
12:21 [Dramatic music]
12:25 [Dramatic music]
12:27 Yeah, here it comes. Ready?
12:30 Okay, just let her take a breath.
12:33 We'll just see how she's doing.
12:36 Okay, let her go.
12:42 Let's let her go that way. She'll be most comfortable.
12:46 Yep, right there. Right there's good.
12:52 [Dramatic music]
12:54 Thank you, my man. That's awesome.
12:58 Alright, we got the peanut butter jar off her head.
13:03 Definitely her. You can tell that that's the mum for sure, for many reasons.
13:07 And, you know, it would have been nice to see her back at the hospital, but she's got four little ones relying on her.
13:14 She's a good, strong mum.
13:16 There she goes, up over the fence.
13:20 Now she can go. She's probably so hot.
13:22 Not being able to breathe and in this temperature.
13:25 Oh, yes, we got her.
13:28 Back at the centre, Lisa is preparing to take a more thorough look at this porcupine's abscess.
13:37 It still seems to be causing him some pain, so the team wants to check on the infection.
13:44 So we've given him something to calm him down a little bit, but he's not fully sedated, fully mesthetized.
13:50 [Lisa is being examined]
13:52 Just get his head high enough to get the anesthesia on him.
13:59 And get him a moment to kind of fall asleep.
14:03 [Music]
14:16 Dr Heather Reed is conducting the examination.
14:19 So this is where the drain is coming out.
14:22 This is something that we put in, in his surgery, because he had a very large area of infection over his hip that kind of originated from a poke up here.
14:31 So there's a puncture wound up here, which I should also check, over his hip there.
14:37 You can see, there, it looks like it's getting better.
14:40 Yeah, looks great.
14:42 All the pus, I guess, was collecting in this area here, so we had to go in, flush it out, and then put this drain in.
14:50 So this lets all the pus drain out on the area that's hanging down, rather than collecting inside.
14:59 Maybe we should just flush it today, and maybe rethink the antibiotic choice.
15:06 I think the pocket is the biggest key, because there was so much coming out of it before, so if there's a slight drainage...
15:12 I don't feel an obvious pocket, but actually, yes, I do.
15:15 Do you?
15:16 Yeah.
15:17 I mean, he's just feeling so much better as far as his behavior, and he's eating so well, and he's chattering, and more aggressive, but...
15:25 Like, it's certainly not as bad as it was the first few times, that's for sure.
15:29 Yeah.
15:30 Ready?
15:31 So what we're going to do is we're going to irrigate this hole and flush it out, because obviously it's still infected.
15:35 The pocket itself is getting smaller, which is typically how they heal, but again, because it's still a little bit productive,
15:41 we would want to continue flushing it out and keeping that drain in there so it's able to drain out on its own.
15:49 Are you able to even put a note on it?
15:50 Mm-hmm.
15:51 It's just...
15:52 It's tricky. I can't figure out how to do this.
15:55 It's like, how do you do this?
15:56 It's your easiest patient.
16:00 Okay. Looks pretty good. So hopefully we've now taken care of the entire abscess.
16:05 The antibiotics have done their work, and it will just seal up and heal up fine.
16:10 If that's the case, then the next step would be preparing him for his release.
16:13 The antibiotics seem to be working, but the staff is still concerned that the infection isn't healing fast enough.
16:21 The longer a wild animal is in captivity, the harder it is on him, and the team is worried he won't make a full recovery.
16:30 Michelle is a volunteer veterinarian at Toronto Wildlife Centre.
16:35 She's arrived at the eye clinic with a painted turtle.
16:39 This turtle was likely hit by a car, and her eye has been badly injured.
16:44 Michelle and the rest of the rehab team are hoping Dr. Joe Wolfer, a veterinary ophthalmologist who volunteers for the centre,
16:52 can help decide on the best treatment for this turtle.
16:55 So you made it here with your turtle?
16:56 Yeah.
16:57 Alright, very good. So what kind of turtle is it?
17:01 This is a painted turtle.
17:02 Painted turtle. Okay. Alright, well I think we can accommodate that. We'll have a look.
17:06 Okie dokie.
17:11 Are you good at holding, like to hold the head out of the shell?
17:15 Yeah.
17:16 Okay.
17:17 It's pretty hard to examine a turtle's head if she decides to tuck it back into her shell.
17:24 Luckily, Michelle has done this before.
17:27 Yeah, that's good right there.
17:34 And they are correct. This eye has been punctured, and some of the internal contents are protruding out of the eye.
17:45 It's very swollen, and it looks infected, so I would, you know,
17:50 she might be feeling punky from that.
17:54 It's clear that the eye can't be saved.
17:57 So the next question is whether it's worth removing it altogether,
18:01 in the hopes that this would make the recovery process a little easier on the turtle.
18:06 Oh yeah, and there's pus or something coming out of the nose as well.
18:14 I do not know what that's all about.
18:17 I don't know. I've never taken the eye out of a turtle before.
18:21 So, I don't know if we could even do that.
18:25 We could definitely start some systemic antibiotics.
18:29 Do you know what they would generally use?
18:31 Oh, use that.
18:32 What's that?
18:33 Ceptazidine or something.
18:34 Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah, that would do.
18:37 Okay, so that's all I'd recommend for now.
18:40 I suppose we could try and take the eye out.
18:43 Boy, it'd be really tough on a turtle, this small, like really tough.
18:47 Both the anesthesia and just the procedure.
18:52 I mean, I've got small instruments, but that would be tough.
18:57 It's not good news.
18:59 Aside from recommending painkillers,
19:02 there's not much even a specialist can do for this little turtle.
19:06 Dr. Joe is reluctant to take a risk on a turtle.
19:11 Just never done it before.
19:13 Yeah, that's always a concern.
19:16 So, you know, I don't know.
19:19 Anyway, hopefully antibiotics do the trick.
19:21 And then the eye will just kind of--
19:23 if you get the infection under control,
19:25 the eye's just going to shrivel down into tiny little regrets and then be fine.
19:30 Okay.
19:31 Now that the turtle's treatment plan has been determined,
19:34 Michelle will take her back to the center for care.
19:37 [♪♪]
19:41 It's been four weeks since this injured porcupine
19:43 was rescued by the team at Toronto Wildlife Centre
19:46 and brought into the centre for an assessment.
19:49 A stubborn abscess was badly infected,
19:52 and the medical team was forced to resort to surgery
19:55 in order to address the problem
19:57 and give the porcupine the best chance to heal.
20:01 Now the abscess is completely gone.
20:04 And this guy is suffering no more pain or discomfort.
20:08 It's time for his release.
20:11 Sarah Castillo and Stacey Freeman have just arrived
20:15 in one of the many pristine green spaces
20:18 in and about the Greater Toronto Area.
20:21 It's far enough from residences and main roads,
20:24 but still close enough to where he was first found.
20:27 So this is a great porcupine release spot.
20:29 He was found here, which is perfect.
20:31 I think we'll just, we'll have to open the whole entire kennel cab
20:34 and we'll just let him walk into the field
20:36 so we can see him walk, which is really nice,
20:38 and we can see, let's him make his decision
20:40 in terms of where he wants to go.
20:42 It's so nice to see an animal back in the wild,
20:45 back where it's supposed to be, knowing that it's going to,
20:48 well, at least assuming it's going to do well
20:50 and it's going to be able to, you know, make more babies
20:53 and do things like that and help its species as a whole.
20:56 I'm so excited.
20:57 Me too.
20:59 Me too.
21:01 It's nice to see this guy go back after being in care for so long.
21:05 Obviously, knowing their biology and their behaviour
21:08 and their ecology really helps, so we get to determine exactly,
21:11 you know, where they should be going
21:13 and what time they need to be released
21:15 to give them the best chance to survive in the wild.
21:17 So I'm thinking right by that fallen tree.
21:19 Let's drop him down.
21:21 [♪♪♪]
21:24 [♪♪♪]
21:26 Let's just back away and let him do his thing.
21:33 That's really cute.
21:35 It's fairly common for the animal to wait a while
21:40 before leaving the crate, but Sarah is still a bit worried
21:43 that it may not be dark enough.
21:45 You definitely want to make sure you're choosing the right time of day,
21:48 the right area for the release for these animals
21:50 because you don't want something horrible to happen.
21:53 And then the porcupine does exactly what the team had hoped for.
21:57 Oh, he looks so good.
21:59 It almost seems as though he recognizes the area
22:02 because once he's out, he's ready to go.
22:05 There he goes.
22:07 So for porcupines, they're more nocturnal animals.
22:09 They're most active at night time,
22:11 but they do increase their activity going into the dark.
22:13 So we released him a little early, a little kind of at dusk.
22:16 The other thing is because he's going to a deep forest,
22:19 it's going to be dark in there, so he's going to have the protection
22:21 he needs no matter what.
22:23 So, I mean, the time we released him allows us to actually see him
22:26 go into the forest and make those decisions that we want to see him making
22:29 without being so dark we can't actually see what's happening.
22:32 I think for this release, where we placed the kennel cab
22:35 and let him make his decision as to, like, where in the forest
22:38 he wanted to go exactly, gave him his best option.
22:41 We didn't force him to one area.
22:43 We kept it far enough back that he could decide where he wants to go,
22:45 and I think it went smoothly. I wasn't really concerned about anything.
22:48 It's awesome.
22:50 While the porcupine has finally returned back to the wild,
22:54 it's not quite as happy an ending for the painted turtle.
22:58 Unfortunately, her injuries were more severe than the team had hoped,
23:02 and she did not survive.
23:05 Beth and assistant Tim are in the operating room,
23:09 saving the turtle's eggs.
23:12 Tim, this is one of our turtles that we've had in care for a little while.
23:15 She was hit by a car and had some trauma to her eyeball.
23:19 Unfortunately, she did not make it.
23:22 She's now, she has died.
23:25 Her eye clearly wasn't her only issue, unfortunately.
23:30 But she does have some eggs inside of her that we're now going to try to recover.
23:34 So even though this turtle didn't make it, at least once we have the eggs out,
23:38 they will hopefully hatch in the fall,
23:41 and we'll be able to release them back into the pond where their mother was found.
23:45 I have done this a number of times before. I really do find it a great thing to do.
23:49 It's of course really unfortunate that this turtle didn't make it,
23:53 but I love the fact that we can still possibly save her hatchlings and release them back.
23:59 You know, we did lose one turtle, which is very, very sad,
24:03 but we could possibly release eight more.
24:07 It's always very sad for everyone at Toronto Wildlife Centre when a patient dies.
24:13 But on the positive side, the eggs can be saved.
24:17 And if they hatch at the Wildlife Centre, they have an excellent chance of survival.
24:22 This whole process is completely worth it because really, turtles,
24:26 it takes such a long time for them to become adults,
24:29 that being able to save some of the babies from them can make a huge difference in the species.
24:34 So this turtle has eight eggs, and the fact that we got to them quickly
24:38 gives them a really good chance of hatching.
24:40 So hopefully we'll now have eight baby painted turtles to release,
24:45 either in the early fall or we'll keep them and release them next spring.
24:49 [Music plays]
25:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]