Intrepid Naturalist Captures Vulture that Flew the Zoo!

By Dave McKinney

Daily Herald Staff Writer

 When you match wits with a 15-pound runaway vulture named Hartman, as Arlington Heights naturalist Garon Fyffe will tell you, it doesn't hurt to have a 50 mile-per-hour wind and a murder of crows on your side.

 Those two components, plus an alert Lake Forest High School custodian who spotted the scavenger, helped Fyffe and Lincoln Park Zoo bag the rare African bird on the 10-yard line of the school's football field.

 The bird had been on the prowl, swooping from treetop to treetop in Arlington Heights, since it hightailed out of the zoo last Friday. Catching him was Fyffe's type of challenge.

 Fyffe, of Arlington Heights, is naturalist director for ABC Humane Wildlife Rescue and Relocation, a 12-year-old business based in Arlington Heights that specializes in the capture of varmints that don't belong in the city.

 "I was willing to help," Fyffe said, "because I like odd things and being able to solve problems that no one else can."

 One problem was sifting the real sightings from the mistaken ones. As soon as word got out the bird was loose, residents from Barrington to south suburban Posen thought they saw him. Hunts in both towns turned up nothing.

 But at about 11 a.m. Lake Forest High School called, reporting the bird to be roosting in a tree, trying to fend off a group of hostile crows. Once there, Fyffe took aim at Hartman with a tranquilizer dart gun, hit him and watched him fly "stoned" several hundred yards. He crash-landed on the school's football field.

 "A good portion of the kids here didn't go to class because of this," said school secretary Lisa Tadel.

 The drowsy, belly-up bird was taken back to the zoo hospital, where it now rests, assured of a full recovery.

 Zoo Assistant Director Dennis Meritt said the animal, which wasn't accustomed to the week's cold, heavy rain or high winds, could have died in another week had it not been caught, Meritt said.

 "What probably happened," Meritt said, "is that it just got blown from Arlington Heights to Lake Forest. The bird's now in reasonable shape and is doing as well as can be expected.

Vulture's recovery looks certain at zoo hospital

By Nancy W. Perlman

And Margaret Eagan

Staff Writers

Hartman, the female, African-born vulture that escaped from a small North Side zoo two weeks ago, is safe and recuperating from her adventures in the wild at the Lincoln Park Zoo hospital.

 "She is much better," Barbara Royal, medical services secretary at the hospital, said Monday. "When she was brought in, she was near death from hypothermia and starvation. Her heart beat averaged 45 beats per minute, when between 240 and 290 beats are considered normal."

 Royal said the Ruppells Griffin Vulture originally was fed a solution of dextrose intravenously because she was too weak to eat. Medications were administered, and the bird was kept warm. Tube feedings of animal material then were started, and for the past few days, the vulture has been able to eat on her own.

 "It's apparent she has gained weight and is feeling better," Royal said. "She's more active in the cage. When she was brought in, her head hung low. Now she's alert and looks around. I'd say she will definitely recover."

 The vulture's journey ended Nov. 16^th at Lake Forest High School when she was sighted by school personnel who contacted the zoo. Lincoln Park Zoo official arrived to find the vulture hunched over a tree branch above the school's football field. Wind whipped around her body, while crows dive-bombed her head.

 That was the description East Campus employee Bob Lundy gave upon spotting the African-born vulture, missing from Chicago's Indian Boundary Park Zoo since Nov. 11.

 The bird was sighted by Lundy at 11:40 a.m. School paraprofessional Matthew Jones, a bird afficionado, confirmed Lundy's suspicions about the missing bird.

 Some students, afraid at first of the large bird, were walking toward the tree with sticks and stones when Jones stopped them.

 Bird specialists arrived on the scene soon after.

 A drug-filled dart, fired from a tranquilizer rifle, boosted the vulture into the air, where she swooped across campus several times before coming to rest in the track field.

 Zookeepers ran after the vulture with nets and a cage.

 With the bird fast asleep, the zookeepers were praising the efforts of "Vulture Buster" Garon Fyffe of ABC Humane Wildlife Rescue and Relocation, Arlington Heights. It was Fyffe who successfully tranquilized the bird.

 "We got lucky," said one zookeeper.

 "Thank you, God," said Sue Ellis-Joseph, Lincoln Park Zoo's curator of birds.

 Two vultures escaped early Nov. 11 after vandals cut a hole in a fence, said Patti Kuntzman, animal keeper with the Indian Boundary Park facility, an adjunct of the Lincoln Park Zoo. The first vulture was captured that day, she said.

 Kuntzman said it is not unusual that a bird with a 6-to 8-foot wing span would catch an updraft wind and travel the 45 miles to Lake Forest.