Rehabilitated geese return to Iowa City after treatment for mysterious illness
Volunteers from Des Moines came to Iowa City to release dozens of rehabilitated geese back in the wild on Sunday.
IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCRG) -Volunteers from Des Moines came to Iowa City to release dozens of rehabilitated geese back in the wild on Sunday.
Iowa Bird Rehabilitation released nearly 40 geese near the banks of the Iowa River.
KCRG-TV9 first began reporting on the sick geese last month after learning that the Iowa Department of Natural Resources was investigating reports of sick and dead geese near the dam of the Iowa River in Coralville.
Officials believe winter conditions and the extreme cold forced geese to congregate near the dam and that the birds then had no option but to eat dead shad giving them a thiamine deficiency.
“The good news is within probably 48 hours we were seeing improvements already and the geese looked, some of them looked almost 100%,” said Jenni Boonjakuakul, Founder and C.E.O. of Iowa Bird Rehabilitation. “So just with a couple days of supportive care, they were making a good turnaround.”
Iowa Bird Rehabilitation took in approximately 60-70 geese altogether.
There are currently about a dozen geese still sick.
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