The Countdown Is On For "Waterproofing"
Over the weekend the IFAW Team and SOCOBIOMA finished washing the 20 birds that were physiologically ready for the procedure. The others are still too thin to be cleaned and need to gain some weight before meeting wash criteria and move through the rehabilitation process.
The clean birds have controlled access to the pool, as the temperatures have been close to freezing since the team’s arrival and only just started to rise.
A water heater has been installed and the animals can now be sprayed with warm water to keep their feathers clean of their excrements and avoid problems with waterproofing later in the rehabilitation process.
The staff is caring for 36 penguins, between oiled and un-oiled, and has received a total of 37 birds. The Center received 6 new penguins in the last few days and those are undergoing stabilization. 
The Team plans to demobilize on Thursday, as the remaining oiled birds at SOCOBIOMA still need to gain weight, and the clean birds still need to gain waterproofing. Dr. Silva is confident that SOCOBIOMA will keep working on the clean bird's waterproofing and stabilizing the new intakes.
Dr. Silva will keep daily contact with SOCOBIOMA to solve issues that come up and will come back to Uruguay after a week to teach them the pre-release evaluation and release criteria, band the birds with IFAW flipper bands and release them in Maldonado.
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God bless you!
Keep up the great work.
Thank you for helping them.
Posted by: Carol | August 14, 2007 at 12:14 PM