Last week, when we were in the Golan, my lab partner went up to our final nest to collect feathers and put identification rings on the two chicks in the nest. When he got up to the nest, though, he was met with a surprise. One of the chicks was healthy and maturing well. The other was not. It seemed that one of the parents had brought some sort of rope back to the nest to use in nest building, but somehow, the other chick got wrapped in the rope in such a way that he could not free itself. The rope was wrapped so tightly around one of his legs that it broke, and eventually detached. The way the rope was wrapped though, prevented major blood loss, and the chick is still alive. The rope also seemed to be tied tightly to the bottom of the nest. The chick was caught in such a position that he could not stretch or straighten his other leg, and because he could not stand, he was unable to compete with his sibling for food that the adult storks brought back to the nest.
While we have no way of knowing how long the chick was caught this way, we would assume more than a couple of days because the other sibling had a body mass twice that of the injured chick. The chick hadn't eaten in what seemed like more than a few days. We brought him down from the nest, cut off some of the rope and gave him some water to drink. He was initially in shock, but after a few minutes and water, he seemed to be doing okay. It was already getting late, though, and we had a three hour drive back to the Tel Aviv area. By the time we would get back, none of the animal hospitals would be open.
It was so Israeli when my lab partner pulled out his phone and called one of the more important people he had in his phone book: someone high up in the Israel Nature & Parks Authority. From there, we got a contact for a veterinarian, and she made the arrangements for someone to meet us at the animal hospital when we got there. We took our drive with our stork in the back seat in pretty high spirits and delivered him to the hospital. They did an emergency surgery and we are still waiting to hear of his progress. If he can strengthen his healthy leg, he will be able to live in the Zoological Gardens in Tel Aviv. While he won't be able to return to nature, his offspring could!
Last week, when we were in the Golan, my lab partner went up to our final nest to collect feathers and put identification rings on the two chicks in the nest. When he got up to the nest, though, he was met with a surprise. One of the chicks was healthy and maturing well. The other was not. It seemed that one of the parents had brought some sort of rope back to the nest to use in nest building, but somehow, the other chick got wrapped in the rope in such a way that he could not free itself. The rope was wrapped so tightly around one of his legs that it broke, and eventually detached. The way the rope was wrapped though, prevented major blood loss, and the chick is still alive. The rope also seemed to be tied tightly to the bottom of the nest. The chick was caught in such a position that he could not stretch or straighten his other leg, and because he could not stand, he was unable to compete with his sibling for food that the adult storks brought back to the nest. 
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