Sonja Hadenfeldt reflects on 10 years of raptor advocacy with RARE

One decade ago, the Raptor Advocacy Rehabilitation & Education Group, or RARE, was a team of eight volunteers working out of the back of Gentle Heart Pet Clinic in Iowa City. Now, the Iowa City-based nonprofit has its own clinic and a network of 40 volunteers who run educational programs in addition to caring for injured birds throughout Eastern Iowa.

Sonja Hadenfeldt became RARE’s coordinator in 2018. She sat down with The Gazette recently to discuss the organization’s focus on raptors, threats the birds are facing in Eastern Iowa and what to do if you find an injured raptor.

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Q: How did you first get involved with RARE?

A: I didn’t start until 2016 and I found a red tail hawk and called and got it in there, and they were working out of the vet’s office at that point because we didn’t have our clinic area ready. And you know, it’s like, I would love to do this. My kids are gone, I want to do this.

Q: Why raptors specifically?

A: I won't say they're easy, but they all have the same diet. When we first started, probably the first two, two-and-a-half to three years that I was there, we did songbirds, we did ducks, we did geese. And the food you have to have on hand, the different types of caging, you have to know the different styles between a cardinal and a robin, and you have to have worms and mealworms.

And when it comes to baby season, baby songbirds are intensive. They eat every hour to two hours when they're feeding before they get their feathers on.

If you look in the raptor books for raptor medicine and raising babies, basically, they're fed two to three times a day … They're not quite as intensive for care as a songbird would be and that's kind of why we got out of it.

Q: You typically work with 125 to 150 birds in a given year. This year, you’ve worked with at least 180. Do you have any ideas on what might be driving that increase?

A: Well, I think partially, there's another rehabber that is in this area, Eastern Iowa, and I think she was out for a good chunk of this spring. So I don't know if we saw a lot of birds that would normally go to her, which — it could happen — but I know in the fall, and I think she was back up and running at that point … there was a time when I had over 20 birds at the clinic, and a lot of them were starvation.

When you look at the rodenticide, the pesticides and the herbicides that we use, so we're killing what they eat, either with the herbicides or the pesticides or the rodenticides. So kestrels and screech owls eat bugs. That's how the babies learn how to hunt. And we're killing it. We're killing everything, so they have nothing to eat. And these babies come in and they're starved, or they can't hunt, and then you have the bad storms and stuff. So, I'm just guessing. I mean, that's just my opinion.

Q: What other threats do raptors face in Eastern Iowa?

A: Habitat. Habitat. Habitat. Derecho killed Cedar Rapids. It wiped out so much of our tree canopy. The area down by Bever Park used to be full of barred owls, and they don’t have that there, because they lost so many of their trees.

Lead is a huge issue for these birds, and we’re starting to see the eagles come in right now with lead poisoning, and people don’t understand … Are you shooting deer with lead shot? … That lead is a soft metal, and when it hits that deer, it fragments everywhere … And then the fish eat it because they’re bottom feeders … it’s in the fishes. And then these guys eat the fish. A piece of lead the size of a grain of rice will kill an eagle.

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Q: Have any birds come in with bird flu?

A: No, thank God.

I mean, we can't test for it. I've asked the state (Department of Natural Resources) officer for tests. Most of it has to be done at the vet clinic … the two vets that I use don't have access to it, or I've not been able to give them the information that they need in order to get the testing for it.

Q: What should people do if they find an injured raptor for RARE?

A: It’s easy. You throw a blanket, you throw a coat, you throw something over top of them, scoop them up and put them in a box. You don’t have to get ahold of those talons.

Q: Why should people bring injured birds to you instead of caring for them on their own?

A: No. 1, it’s illegal to have them because it’s a migratory bird, and you can’t have them in your care. And No. 2, they have unique diets, and they need that whole prey in order to have the vitamins, the minerals, the calcium and everything that they need so they can grow strong bones and feathers.

Every year, babies are kidnapped because, aww, they’re so cute, and that's what happened with Killy (one of RARE’s educational birds). Him and his nest mates went down in the storm, their nest tree went down. They called the rehabber, and the rehabber said, “Put the nest back up.” The parents were flying around, calling to the babies. The babies were answering, and we walked them through how to do a re-nest, and they took them in the house, and they fed them all hamburger. Killy was the only one that survived out of four. The rest of them got ... very fat, and their bodies could not hold up their weight because their bones didn't have the calcium, because they didn't eat a full prey diet.

We have the expertise in order to fix a bird or raise them. And especially if you have babies in the nest and it's by your house, you have the joy of watching the parents raise those babies then.

Q: It must be difficult when there’s a situation like that, where there’s nothing you can do. How do you make those painful decisions about whether to euthanize an animal?

A: Sometimes you just have to look at the bird, and you have to say, what would your quality of life be if I could save you?

And everybody's like, well, we could do educational bird … Not everybody fits the criteria to be able to be educational. It’s hard. It is. And it’s like, that's probably the hardest thing that I have to teach people, because they want to save everybody, and you can't. We're giving them that peaceful out.

Q: Are there any common misconceptions about raptors you’d like to clear up for our readers?

A: People will call, “You need to come get this bird.”

Well, why?

“Well, because it's at my feeder.”

Well, what's it doing?

“Well, it's eating my birds.”

That's what it does. What kind of bird is it? You know? And then they'll send the picture, and it's like, Yep, it's a coop, or it's a sharp shin.

“Well, you need to come get it. It's eating my birds.”

That's what it does. Take your bird feeders down for a couple days. You know, people just — they want nature on their terms, and that's sad.

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Q: Any last thoughts you want to share before we close?

A: We’re a nonprofit. Everything that we do is based on either grants or donations. My food bills run $2,000 every couple of months, depending on how many birds I have.

I’m invested in these birds. I want to educate as many people as I can. I want you all to understand how beautiful, how unique, how just marvelous they are. I’ve been doing this for 10 years, and I still learn something new about these birds, because each species of raptor has their own unique characteristics, unique parenting, unique hunting, feeding, whatever. Just learn about these birds. They’re beautiful.

Comments: fern.alling@thegazette.com