A heart of gold: Bird Lady facing serious health issue

Posted 1/23/25

The Bird Lady of Cody has a broken heart. While she has experienced many heartbreaking events in her life, in this case her heart is actually in need of repair and is limiting many of her wildlife …

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A heart of gold: Bird Lady facing serious health issue

Posted

The Bird Lady of Cody has a broken heart. While she has experienced many heartbreaking events in her life, in this case her heart is actually in need of repair and is limiting many of her wildlife lifesaving efforts for which she is famous.

Susan Ahalt's health issues have increased recently; so much so that her supplemental insurance for Medicare costs more than half of her income from Social Security. It's a tough pill to swallow, but her immediate needs are more important — including fixing her wood-burning stove, the only source of heat in her home.

Lying in a recliner dressed in two layers of clothes and under two quilts, Ahalt, the founder of Ironside Bird Rescue, has endured many harsh winters in her cabin located just east of downtown Cody. But with a valve in her heart needing a replacement, the last thing she needed was for the fan in her stove to break. Calls to local repair specialists have gone unanswered as of press deadlines, she said.

Yet, despite the 81-year-old's health and home issues, Ahalt is still answering calls to rescue birds. Recently she received a call from a woman in Powell who had found an injured rough-legged hawk.

The hawk was brought to Ahalt, who immediately took the raptor to a veterinarian for X-rays. Unfortunately, there was too much damage and the hawk was euthanized.

"I told the lady she gave it a good death, because otherwise, it would have just laid there and suffered until it froze to death," Ahalt said.

Earlier this week she received a call; there was an injured great horned owl on the city's main drag. Ahalt responded, gathering up the injured owl and immediately took it to a veterinarian she has used for years. The owl had been hit by a car and its injuries were too severe to save the bird.

     

Challenges

None of the birds she has rescued so far this year has been able to be saved, she said, her voice cracking as emotions came up. However, Ahalt still has several birds in the facility.

Everyday she feeds them, as well as the guinea pigs she raises as food for the raptors. But she can no longer pull her cart, making many tasks harder — especially during winter season.

The rest of the food required comes in 50-pound boxes. While she has a wonderful volunteer in Jess Lewis, who has been assisting Ahalt for the past few years, "she also has a real job," Ahalt said.

Lewis currently works at Advanced Veterinary Care Center in Cody. She is poised to take the reins at Ironside when Susan finally calls it quits. Lewis has recently received state and federal permits and licenses to be a qualified wildlife rehabilitator, alleviating Ahalt's biggest fear that if she couldn't do the job, there would no longer be a rehab facility in the Big Horn Basin.

The facility has saved hundreds of raptors including eagles, hawks, owls, falcons and other birds — from ravens to greater Sandhill cranes. 

Ahalt said she currently needs an additional volunteer with a strong back and flexible schedule to assist her on carrying heavy loads to the bird care buildings, including a large flight training cage on her 3-acre property.

"I'm not supposed to lift that much," she said of the deliveries that are now about half her body weight.

She often does more than she is supposed to do, but her heart condition has slowed her tremendously.

"In the last two weeks, I've been so weak I would run out of air walking to my front gate [12 feet from her front door]," she said.

Running Ironside since 1987 (becoming a nonprofit in 1990), Ahalt has faced injuries, but has refused to let birds brought to her suffer — even when she was confined to a wheelchair.

Like each bird that makes its way to Ironside, every effort is made to return them to the wild healthy and happy. Some don’t make it and sadly are euthanized. Others will live but never fly again and become educational birds, destined to teach folks about the importance of the species and conservation efforts. But when a wildlife rehabilitator gets a chance to release a patient that would have otherwise perished, it’s life-changing. Ahalt is living proof of the power of saving injured and sick wildlife.

    

Recovery

Recently Ahalt, who previously had a double hip replacement, cracked a bone attached to the prosthetic after falling while chasing a hawk. She was confined to a wheelchair after the operation and had become depressed, thinking her days of wildlife rescue were over.

“I thought I was going to be watching my entire life, my history, my future, go away,” she said in an interview with the Tribune shortly after the fall.

She was in a Billings hospital for six days and recovery took months. Thanks to volunteers, she was able to be at the eventual release of the hawk, though she had to watch from the passenger seat of a pickup truck. As the bird flew free she yelled "Go Kenny," the name she had given the beautiful raptor.

"After what happened today, I don’t feel that way anymore. I know I still have things to contribute,” she said at the time. “I’m not as capable now — I’ll probably never be able to run down an eagle again, but seeing [Kenny] fly has brought my life back to me.”

Lewis immediately took over the chores at Ahalt’s bird rescue while Susan was confined to a wheelchair, along with several of her supporters including Chuck Preston and his wife Penny, and Chris and Susan Pfister. With several birds in need of care at the facility and Ahalt unable to do the work, Lewis filled in while still working a full-time job.

Lewis might have a regular job now, but she has worked as both a volunteer and employee at zoos and wildlife rehab organizations. She’s also a volunteer for the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s raptor program, where her husband Brandon is an employee. Many of Ahalt’s volunteers also give their time to the museum program, including longtime volunteer Rose Hughes, who was in Alaska at the time of Ahalt’s fall.

“It’s a close knit family,” said Chuck Preston, former curator of the Draper Natural History Museum and a frequent volunteer at Ironside.

With each task, Lewis developed more respect for the “hard, thankless job” Ahalt has done for decades.

"She's nothing, if not tenacious," Lewis said Tuesday.

Ahalt said donations for Ironside have been falling since she hasn't been able to send out her bi-annual newsletters. During tough financial times over the past four decades, Ahalt has footed the bills out of her own pocket for expensive tests, treatments, medicines and food. She is now, once again, being forced to use her modest retirement funds for the birds.

“I’ve never turned down a bird,” she said. “I’ll raise birds in my living room if I have to," she said in 2020.

There is currently an effort to raise money to help pay for Ahalt's medical care. Her position is unpaid and her own property and personal resources are shared and consumed by the rescue work she does, a Go Fund Me account says.

"In coming months, Susan will be undergoing some medical trials for heart valve replacement. With Wyoming being such a rural place, even routine doctor visits and especially specialty surgeries, all require out of state travel to either Montana or Colorado. For fuel and/or airfare, co-pays, food and lodging, and potentially reimbursement to those caring for her animal residents while she is recovering, she is going to face some unfair financial strain in the near future," wrote Megan Luszczynski, organizer of the fundraiser effort. "For a woman who has volunteered her time for the entirety of her life to rehab and care for Wyoming's wildlife and to help out the community, she is long overdue for the community to help her out in return. Yes, she has many donors that contribute to the animals but this fundraiser is for her personally for the incredible lady she is."

The fundraising site can be found at: gofundme.com/f/help-susan-ahalt-wildlife-hero-needs-medical-aid.

To make a donation or volunteer to Ironside Bird Rescue, contact thebirdlady@tctwest.net.

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