Delta rehabilitation centre sees dramatic rise in bird rescues

While the Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society showed off its rehab centre on Saturday as part of its annual open house, it was also scrambling to deal with a big surge in birds needing help so far this year.

The group has rescued 185 birds in 2016; on pace to break the 626 volunteers brought in and helped rehabilitate in 2015.

Head bird supervisor Rob Hope says the surge is all due to the warm weather this spring that has birds hatching about two weeks earlier than usual.

"We haven't seen it this early so we're seeing that not only in the Lower Mainland but throughout the province," he said. "They're early-hatching in the wild."

That's also put a strain on the organization, which relies on donations to operate.

"It affects us because normally when we get babies, it's a lot of money to feed them," said Hope.

"[The open house], it's a major fundraiser that we have," said Karen Wheatley, president of the OWL Rehabilitation Centre. "We don't get any government support at the moment so we rely solely on private and corporate donations."

During the open house, volunteers released some bald eagles back into the wild, which Wheatley says have also increasingly needed help.

"There's so many out there in Delta, there's tonnes and it's really over-crowded and it's unfortunate because we keep cutting down the trees that they perch in," said Wheatley.

She says the birds get injured through gunshots, electrocution, flying into windows or are hit by cars. They also get poisoned from eating fishing weights.

with files from Kamil Karamali