Pati Mattrick of Elizabethtown feeds a morsel of doughnut to Stormygirl, the house finch she rescued four years ago. The Pennsylvania Game Commission, assisted by police, seized the bird from Mattrick on Thursday.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission on Thursday morning seized a pet bird from an Elizabethtown woman who had saved it four years earlier after it fell from a nest in her yard.
Taking the house finch from the wild and making it a pet violates a state law as well a federal law that protects migratory birds, the Game Commission said.
When a story, titled "The miracle bird," on how the bird's rescue had changed the woman's life was featured this week in a story in the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era, the agency was forced to act, said Jerry Feaser, Game Commission spokesman.
The Game Commission obtained a search warrant, and a wildlife conservation officer, accompanied by an Elizabethtown Borough policeman, showed up unannounced at the home of Pati Mattrick around 9 a.m.
The bird was taken to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, where it will be determined if the bird can be conditioned to survive in the wild and released, if possible, Feaser said.
Mattrick was issued a warning but was not cited with any violations, Feaser said. She could have been fined from $75 to $200 under the state law violation.
"You may not be in possession of an animal from the wild, period. It was an illegal act, and the animal had to be removed," he said.
Mattrick was undergoing oral surgery Thursday and could not be reached for comment. Her husband, Phil Mattrick, said she was "distraught."
"I'm upset because they upset my wife so," he said. "They could have handled it better. They came to the door with police and sidearms. They could have maybe given her other choices. They could have written her a letter first."
Mattrick had found the bird on the ground during a storm four years ago last Saturday. Two other baby birds were already dead nearby, and she took the featherless bird into her home.
Though told by wildlife rehabilitators that it would certainly die, the bird survived in a makeshift incubator made with a heating pad. The woman fed the bird a diet of chopped-up worms and bugs.
Mattrick, 56, who was dealing with personal and physical hardships at the time, credits the bird with giving her a new lease of life.
The bird, which she named Stormygirl, has continued living in the house, flying freely and fed mostly fruit and birdseed. Mattrick says it spends most of the day singing.
But Feaser says Mattrick should have taken the bird to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and not kept it.
"We recognize that well-meaning, well-intentioned people want to care for wildlife, but in many cases, that care normally is what kills the animal — they literally kill them with kindness," Feaser said.
Moreover, he pointed out, bringing wild animals inside can expose the would-be rescuer and others to lice, ticks and fleas and wildlife-borne diseases such as rabies.
The best thing for the bird would have been to have taken it to a wildlife rehabilitator after the rescue, agreed Leah Stallings, a rehabilitator licensed by the Game Commission. She's executive director of Ark Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center in Bucks County.
"It's a shame when something like that happens because her intentions were good," Stallings said. "She absolutely needed to rescue it, and a wildlife rehabilitation center would have raised and released it.
"Her heart was in the right place, but when it became a captive it really wasn't doing the bird any favors. Unfortunately, they're making an example out of her."
Since the bird has been flying freely and has been fed a healthy diet, its chances of being able to fend for itself and being released appear to be good, Stallings said.
But Mattrick's pastor, Robert Roberge of Living Hope Assembly Church, said he's never heard Mattrick so upset.
"My thought is that that bird is a very therapeutic pet to Pati and that it would be a shame if it were taken away."
In 2007, the Game Commission was involved in a controversial seizure of an orphaned part-albino deer that a 90-year-old Conestoga woman had found and nursed back to health in an outside pen before releasing it. It continued to hang around, and a neighbor complained it was eating his landscaping.
The agency initially tried to capture the deer to kill it and test it for chronic wasting disease. But after a public outcry, however, the Game Commission tried to capture it to turn over to a wildlife rehabilitator for possible release into the wild.
But the deer was never seen again.
