The Amazing Brown Booby

The amazing Brown Booby - found well away from her usual habitat

This beautiful and unusual tropical bird was found by our Australian Seabird Rescue branch Co-ordinator, Kirsten, and Team Member, Dallas, well away from her usual habitat - we can only assume with a sore wing she was caught in the big monsoonal trough in the new year.

The Boobys usually roost on coral cays, buoys or the rigging of ships – it is quite common for them to hitch a ride on a ship.  We went straight to our mates at SOSSA (Southern Oceans Seabird Study Association) for an assessment and under the care of Cannon & Ball Vets she was assessed as having some head trauma as well as a sore wing.  On the Sunday, and with no improvement, we decided to take her to Greencross Vet as Cannon and Ball Vets weren’t open and an Xray revealed no break but a lot of tissue damage.

Lindsay and Janice of SOSSA had a very good friend visiting, Damien, who is the assistant curator of the Northern Territory Wildlife Park, so he also looked at Ms Booby.  She was certainly being looked after and seemed settled for a few days on medication.  However, she became stressed and stopped eating and was totally disoriented.  We took her back to Mike Cannon and it was decided the head trauma showed little improvement and the kindest thing we could do was to euthanize her. Being such a beautiful bird she was sent by SOSSA straight to the museum in Sydney to be included in their display.

A big thank you to Lindsay of SOSSA, Mike from Cannon & Ball Vets, Heyn from Greencross Vets and Damien of the NT Wildlife Park for their assistance.  It was great to meet Damien being an ex NT girl and to hear an update on the Wildlife Park.

Betty