Today I had another first. I picked up my first Great Blue Heron carcass and the really nice customer asked me what it had died of.

I thought of something immediately. What would you have answered?

Eustrongylidiasis?

Irreparable damage due to unknown causes. Or

It most likely died of eating too much. or a Blivot.

I have no idea maam. Please make the check out to the name on the invoice

Natural causes.

Paul,

Curious what your SOP is for calls about birds under federal protection when found dead like that. Thinking about
hawks and so forth mostly and possession laws...

I remember many moons ago needing to have a colleagues permit number written on any bag that held a dead raptor
or other bird covered under the MBTA.

Interesting call, did it look like something obvious happened in terms of collision with something, broken wings, etc...?

They do eat so many diverse things I could see one occasionally killing them. We watched a night heron two years back
about 20 feet away in a refuge with a very live gopher snake wrapped around its neck as it was trying to eat one end of it.

In the end the bird won but not before its eyes almost bulged out of its head, it finally spat up the snake completely and then
grabbed it smashed it repeatedly before gulping it down...

Impressive sight though I wish I had a better video of it...

Depression got sick of being blue

Okay, patriot trapper is way smarter than the normal guy on this site. Eustrongylidiasis is a parasite that effects young Eastern

Great Blue herons and can be fatal. As a side note, eustrongylidiasis is also a parasite that humans can sometimes get from eating

sushi. Thanks patriot, you made me learn something new.

Justin, we have no SOP for surprises like this. When we get a call for picking up a dead bird in someone's backyard, a Great Blue

heron is not what I had in mind. The customer did not want her dogs dragging it around and it had been dead for a while. I picked

it up in several pieces. As far as getting a citation for transporting a protected species around, I have learned that you rarely

get in trouble unless you are looking for it. A good example is our bat exclusion scheduled for today. We can't do it without a

permit until the day after tomorrow. The customer didn't have a permit so my wife called the head bat control officer for the DNR.

He called back very quickly and told us he had talked to the woman and that we could go ahead. We didn't look for trouble and our

good bat removal reputation is even better than it was. I think a great reputation will sometimes get you preference.

On a side note. I get trout from a hatchery, for fish oil processing, one of several owned by the same family across our state.

Each hatchery site is given a depredation permit to cull 60-90 herons per calendar year from our DNR as seen fit. They can do some eating and fatal hits to fish in the rearing spillways just there for the picking so to speak.

Never realized how big of a liability they are ( blue herons ) to that industry until I got to know the owners better.

It's time I guess.

Wow! That is really some interesting information, Bob. What's the preferred method of heron removal? I know that they can land some

distance away and walk in if they have to. We have a blue heron rookery two miles west of us so we have plenty.

I usually tell people you know animals don't have very good health care. When you get sick or injured in nature many times you die. Nobody spends hundreds of thousands of dollars, puts them in intensive care etc.so they can see them tomorrow. If you want to see some real mean sht watch national geographic. If I wanted to get political I guess I could say obamacare but I usually just want to make the point that mother nature makes me look like mister nice guy.
When I cause the death some people want me to tell them the animal was sick, old etc. I tell them no he was in the prime of his life, no he was in perfect health. They say I want you to tell me blah blah blah. I say I know you do but you're going to have to share this with me. The only thing wrong with him was he violated your house, barn etc. I'm a professional I just took care of your problem. We share a moment of silence and a smile and thank them for their business.

Here is the first thing that entered my warped mind when my customer asked me what killed it; "The heron swallowed a fish from your

pond backwards. The dorsal fin got stuck in his throat and he choked to death." Fortunately my brain made a correction before I said

it and I ended up talking about West Nile Virus and other diseases that kill birds. I wish I would have known about eustrongylidiasis

or even how to pronounce it. I would have sounded intelligent for a change.

Unless I've put the animal down or a quick viewing of the carcass easily shows the cause of death (i.e., fish stuck in throat, arrow sticking out of heart/lung area, etc.) my answer is always the same, "I don't know." Operators, especially ones that are new, incorrectly think if they say these words to a client that they aren't being professional which just isn't true. The two most important phrases and words an operator needs to be able to use are "I don't know" and "no."

By saying "I don't know" you are showing your professionalism. If you or the client wants, you can then follow this up with a quick biology lesson explaining that animals, just like people, can be born with medical issues, get sick and injured, are susceptible to dehydration, heat stroke, exhaustion and age. The only way to really know what happened is to submit the animal to someone that is qualified to perform a necropsy and perform all the necessary lab tests.

Solid gold there.

Even if they don't call you on it, I think most people can tell when you're BS'ing them.

Blue Heron Story

An elderly hunter was exiting a waterfowl hunting area carrying a dead blue heron.

The game warden asked him "what do have there grandfather?"

He proudly answered "I Gots me a blue goose!"

This heron died from lead poison, the warden almost died laughing, and grandfather got a ticket.

Thanks Phil, there's a story I will not soon forget. Now if he would have had an egret in the other hand, he would have had a snow goose too.

His heart stopped beating! Gets them every time:)

Old age. Makes 'em feel good, ya know. Decent burial, and all...............

What Eric said. "I don't know" is the appropriate answer if that is the case; as a professional, you may feel compelled to find the answer. What I really hate is the guys who just make stuff up, or who use one incident to proclaim always or never.