Thor Froslev considers himself a neighbourly sort of person and that benevolence extends to feathered friends in the community. Proprietor of the Brackendale Art Gallery (BAG) and the eagle aid station, Froslev and his wife, Dorte, along with volunteers, have rescued and rehabilitated numerous raptors since building the facility in 2003.
Rescuing injured raptors can be tricky business, especially if you are slightly hard of hearing, as Froslev discovered a few years ago. When he received a phone call from the Squamish landfill asking him to come rescue a bird trapped in wire, Froslev heard "eagle," but it was in fact, a "seagull." Nevertheless he had a good laugh and rescued the bird, even though the centre specializes in rescuing raptors.
Consisting of a fly space 16 feet long, a three-foot long bath and a first aid room, the eagle aid station is on-call 24 hours a day. When the call about an injured raptor comes in, Froslev loads up his truck with a pet carrier, blankets and thick gloves, and heads to the scene.
"When we get an injured bird, we feed it, and then we put it in the warm oven and then after a day or two, they go into the fly space," said Froslev, explaining that the birds are often in shock. Fitting them in a T-shirt sleeve and placing them in a warm space helps them deal with the trauma of being handled by humans, he said.
When hundreds of bald eagles come to Brackendale each year, it is inevitable that some are injured, particularly juvenile birds, which can be found starving because they lack the experience of their elders and because people all too often flush them out. Often they need to be force-fed because of the stress they are experiencing, said Froslev.
If the bird's injuries are severe, they are treated and stabilized and then transferred to OWL (Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society) in the Lower Mainland, where they have the provision for further rehabilitation and ongoing care.
Froslev has fond memories of a barred owl he rescued after it was hit by a car and had a concussion and an injured eye.
"We spent a few days feeding it mice and chicken," he said. "One day there was a little sparrow landing right outside the cage and she was right there, trying to catch it. That's when I thought it was about time, so I released her in a park and she flew straight across the park and sat on a branch and disappeared."
Releasing rehabilitated raptors back to the wild is extremely rewarding, said Froslev, noting that 12 raptors have been rescued and released in the past few years.
Patricia Heintzman, one of the co-ordinators of the annual eagle count, admires Froslev's passion for raptors.
"For years after he started co-ordinating the eagle count, he would get calls from people seeing injured raptors," she said, adding that there was no facility in town to assist them. "He saw that need and built the aid station."
With any first aid, the first few hours are what matters, Heintzman said.
"If you have someone who knows how to capture, then care for and feed them, then you're just one leg up on helping that bird survive."
An interpretive centre houses a library on raptor information and Heintzman says the centre's goals are to augment the education side of things, provide primary care and develop a scientific research facility.
"The next challenge is to take it to the next level, to be able to do that much more and to provide better care for injured raptors," she said.
On the wish list for the eagle aid station are donations of scales for weighing birds, a computer and medical tools. Heintzman said centre volunteers are also looking for video footage of eagles, which they plan to compile into an educational video.
Anyone who has located an injured raptor is encouraged to call Froslev on (604) 898-3333.
