A Pelican Called Ralph (and other stories)

I really can’t get out of my head (and believe me, I’ve tried!) the image of noted wildlife rescuer Hope Swinimer with a blanket draped over her arm begging entrance to Dartmouth’s home of “adult entertainment”, Ralph’s Place. That has been one of several enduring images from Hope for Wildlife in the four weeks following their late-August Open House, a time of year when things usually mellow out and slow down. Not this year, however. Strange and uncommon events kept Hope for Wildlife in the news across Canada and around the world.

First there was a seagull who decided to impale himself on the lightning rod of a downtown Halifax church. He was up there for two days before the fire department helped him down. Pictures from that event went everywhere, including news services in Europe and India. The media focus was so tunnel-visioned on the gull story that they almost missed the Department of Natural Resources nabbing people trying to sell a fawn on the internet as a house pet. Both the gull and the deer ended up at Swinimer’s Seaforth farm, and with them came a wave of media attention.

The dust had barely settled around those incidents when hurricane Earl swept in, bringing with it many surprises. Newborn squirrels, raccoons, and song birds began showing up, just when Hope for Wildlife was releasing akin foundlings from last spring. What followed them was not pretty. More than one hundred birds, some merely needing food and a place to rest but others smashed by the gales, started to pour into the Seaforth facility, and many were deep-sea birds of unusual kinds. Two were Royal Terns, a species that summers off Florida and the West Indies and should have been heading for Argentina and Africa for the winter months. Neither survived. There were many Storm Petrels, another bird rarely seen by land folk, and most of them made it.

As this mass of birds was being sorted out, the Department of Natural Resources got itself into the news again. Using undercover agents, plus sea and air transport, DNR raided Tancook Island in Mahone Bay to rescue a captive deer. The three year old doe was crated and air-lifted off Tancook , then trucked to Hope for Wildlife. She was placed in a deer enclosure full of orphaned fawns and became an instant celebrity.

That same day, Hope Swinimer was sitting in her office at the Dartmouth Veterinary Hospital when someone rushed in to tell her there was a pelican on Main Street in front of Ralphs’ Place. Pelican spottings in Nova Scotia are on the rare side, so it took a few more reports before she felt this one deserved checking out. Since the sighting was only two buildings away from her office, she decided to go herself, and quickly met witnesses who said the bird had left Ralph’s parking lot but now was up on the building’s roof. Without really considering the ramifications, Swinimer took her capture blanket, swung open the front door of Ralph’s Place, and asked to go up to the roof. A startled clerk denied her and called for the manager. Patrons began to stare and Swinimer quickly became aware of her situation and what pub people must be thinking of this strange woman with a blanket trying to talk her way into an adult entertainment facility, claiming to be looking for a lost pelican.

Thankfully, someone outside called to her that the bird had left, so she quit in pursuit, tracking it to the parking lot of McDonald’s next door. Swinimer was able to identify it as a Brown Pelican, a bird that lived from the Carolinas southward, and knew it was another guest courtesy of Earl, but before she could act, the bird flew to the top of the Dartmouth Veterinary Clinic, then to Burger King where it began mooching fries and hamburgers, and causing traffic problems. It fled when she approached, but this time showed just how weak storm travel had made it by slamming into the glass front of a nearby building and stunning itself. Swinimer made the capture and took her new guest, now known as Ralph for obvious reasons, to Seaforth for rehabilitation,. Meanwhile, media were once again all over her for the story, including a live interview on CBC Radio’s Information Morning. Host Don Connolly tried to sum up the adventure.

“Going from Ralph’s to McDonald’s, to Burger King, and then knocking himself out. Sounds like a Saturday night, doesn’t it?” he suggested. “Sounds like a bad Saturday night,”

Bad for the bird,perhaps, but not for Hope for Wildlife. However, it was definitely part of a September that had not been normal. Perhaps "unusual" would have been a better word.