Chance

 05/17/2017
7:09PM - A phone call came in from Julie Dubay with  distressing news about a fledgling raven hanging upside-down, stuck  about 25' up in a pine tree. Julie was house sitting for a neighbor and  when she went over to feed their cats she noticed a fledgling raven  dangling and flapping in a tree, obviously stuck! She expressed how she  was unable to do anything since she did not have a ladder or ability to  climb a tree. I also do not have a ladder and I am terrified of  heights!Soon after I get a picture on my phone. And then another.
 

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 After talking a few times I tell  Julie that I will post a message on our High Desert Wildlife group on  Facebook and ask for help! 

 Instantly people started posting. Tagging people that  could possibly help or may know someone that could. A few posts talk  about calling animal control and the fire department. At 7PM BOTH are  closed. So my husband (Mike Marchigiani) calls 911 and pleads with them  to send the Fire Dept. to help but they state that they do not do that  kind of thing but they would contact Animal Services in Apple Valley to  see if they can help. I get the sad news back that the Animal Control  said they were not allowed to climb trees to rescue things. After  another phone call with Julie she decides to hunt down a neighbor that  works in construction and has some ladders and borrows the ladder from  him. She calls me back to let me know that she has the ladder and hubby  and I jump in the car with a rescue kit, a box and phone and off we go  to the rescue! When we arrive Julie has pruning clippers and but branch  clippers ready for the rescue. 

 Mike, my husband, has MS and is unsteady but still  attempts to climb the ladder once we have it placed securely. I am  terrified of heights but I convince him to get down and I climb up and  start trimming a path toward the tree to see how close I can get to the  fledgling. By the time I was at the top of the ladder the Diane from the  Apple Valley Animal Control Services arrives and lets us use her tools  to see if we can get this poor bird down. In the dark with our  flashlights trying to figure all of this out, we hear a call from a  neighbor asking if everything is OK. We hollar back that we are trying  to get a raven that is stuck out of the tree and Julie goes over to talk  to him. He is a young man and offers to help! The young man, Tadrian  Patton, easily climbs the ladder and then a few branches to cut and  prune away a few more branches to get close to bird in distress.  

 One more thing needed. A saw! So Julie runs back to her  house and grabs a saw and soon the raven is cut lose from the tree and  placed in Diane's net with the extension pole and lowered down.

I  gathered the bird from the net and did a quick check of his condition  and his wings were very beat up, scratched, red and bleeding from trying  to flap and banging his wings against the surrounding branches. Diane,  the animal control officer, had a knife and was able to safely cut the  rope that was tightly wrapped around his leg and Julie got a picture of  the offending material that was used in the nesting material. 

 After getting Chance back home  and doing a more thorough exam it was noted that his leg had some more  serious injuries. Because of the restriction from the rope causing lack  of blood flow some of the tissue started to die off and he will likely  lose one toe at the very least. We are working frantically to get a vet  to do some cold laser therapy and we are also working with a wonderful  woman who is trained in Electro-AcuScope. Dollar signs are flashing by  my eyes with every call but we desperately want to get him as well as we  can to give him a second chance to be a free and wild raven and back  with his family unit.