Rescue Center Gives Birds, Animals 2nd Chance

Lydia Miller’s van bounced along the dirt ranch road toward a stand of eucalyptus and cottonwood trees north of this tiny Merced County hamlet.

In the back of her vehicle were three cardboard boxes, each containing a large red-shouldered hawk. Miller headed for the trees lining a creek, where she was going to release the hawks.

The sky was alive with birds. “Look at those great blue herons. There’s a red-tailed hawk. See the turkey vultures, the kestrels and those king birds? All kinds of guys. Probably some of mine I released,” Miller said excitedly.

Michael Macias, 55, lieutenant in charge of the state Department of Fish and Game office in Merced, followed in his car. He was on hand to help Miller with the release.

A few minutes later, Miller, 31, president of the all-volunteer, five-county San Joaquin Raptor Wildlife Rescue Center, headquartered in Merced, donned protective gloves and lifted the birds for release. Each hawk flapped its wings, stood momentarily on her hand and then flew away.

“This is a thrill. This is what it’s all about,” Miller shouted.

The three hawks were chicks when they were blown out of their nests by a windstorm. Miller cared for the young birds for 50 days. Now, ready to be on their own, they were returned to the wild.

Miller not only rescues and nurses wildlife back to health; she is a militant advocate of protecting wildlife habitat in Merced, Madera, Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Mariposa counties.

She and the other volunteers of the rescue center are widely known as the “watchdogs of Central Valley.”

Earlier this month, Miller blew the whistle on the shooting of thousands of protected wild birds--egrets, grebes, herons, ospreys, cranes and other species--by Merced College students hired by the owner of a 400-acre commercial goldfish farm at El Nido in Merced County. He claimed that the birds were destroying his crop of fish.

She alerted the press to the shootings that she and her group had been monitoring for three years and subsequently there was an investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department and the state Fish and Game Department.

Authorities found more than 700 dead birds buried on the premises after a federal search warrant was issued. The case is still under investigation.

When efforts were made to locate a rocket manufacturing plant near a bald eagle nesting area of the San Joaquin Valley, Miller was in the vanguard of the successful fight against it. She also led a campaign to stop construction of a detention center in a sand hill crane nesting area.

The 16-year-old rescue center, licensed by the Department of Fish and Game, operates out of the homes of 30 volunteers and rescues, rehabilitates and returns to the wild not only raptors but all wild birds, mammals and reptiles brought to its attention.

Last year the center took in 227 raptors--hawks, kestrels, kites, harriers, eagles, vultures and owls--of which 150 were returned to the wild. A few were given to zoos and the others either died or had to be destroyed.

Of the 392 other wild birds cared for--herons, egrets, grebes, rails, ducks, plovers, sandpipers, pheasant, doves, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, swallows, jays, bushtits, larks, pipits, wrens, shrikes, thrushes, flycatchers, waxwings, finches, snipes, swifts, galls and terns--287 were later released and 105 died.

The center also received 51 mammals and reptiles--snakes, opossum, rabbits, coyotes, squirrels, foxes, deer and wolves, of which 22 were later released and 21 died.

There are 32 similar wildlife centers scattered throughout the state, but Miller’s group takes in far more raptors than the others and has a reputation for being the most aggressive in the state in protecting wildlife habitat.

Lydia Miller and her husband, Greg, 33, a bakery supervisor, share a bedroom at their home with with incubators and cages holding cliff swallows, finches, king birds, scrub jays, quail, morning doves and a woodpecker. They have no children.

They feed the tiny baby birds “bug butter” and ordinary bird seed.

“People like Greg and Lydia Miller provide a service we’re not able to do,” Macias said. “They get phone calls all hours of the day and night from people who have found a baby bird that fell from a nest, a bird that has been shot, eggs in an abandoned nest. They take the birds or wild animals in some cases, nurse them back to health and release them.”

“We love them all, but the best part is when we watch them fly away,” Lydia Miller said.