A Wing & A Prayer: LB Vet Is Hero To His Flock

This Veterans Day, the Pet Post honors Dan Lubniewski, aka the Bird Man of Long Beach. Dan is a veteran U.S. Marine Lance Corporal who has experienced some of the difficulties that other armed forces vets have experienced, but he’s not defined by them. Dan is a hero and saint. Francis of Assisi, to be exact.

Although Dan was a Marine, he has been for over five years a champion of a flying squadron—or, more exactly, squab-dron. Dan has rescued and rehabilitated an astonishing number of pigeons since he saved his first one in 2005, and he hasn’t doctored his last flyboy yet.

“I think I was never happier because of all the lives I’m saving,” Dan said. “It is so rewarding,” Dan said. “No one could really ever understand, unless they have held the thousands of injured and tortured birds like I have. I don’t know how to not to care.”

Some readers undoubtedly have thoughts about Dan’s vocation, the gentlest of which is probably “Dear Lord, pigeons!” But during World War II, the same statement was made with gladness and relief, and we’re also honoring these avian veterans who have also been neglected and mistreated. Pigeons had their own air force during World War II, carrying coded messages to and from the Allied forces. Many of the birds were shot at by enemy forces and attacked by German falcons; some were killed and others were wounded. Among the injured, there were some who still accomplished their missions, just as their human counterparts did. Paddy was the first bird to make it back to England with news from the D-Day Normandy landings in 1944 through much danger and with much derring-do. He received the Dickin medal (the equivalent of the Victoria Cross) 55 years after his death at age 11, and was remembered in 2003 in a children’s book, Paddy the Pigeon by Gail Seekamp. The touching story of Cher Ami, the pigeon who flew through artillery fire and lost a leg and an eye to deliver a message that saved the lives of a British commander and his men, is online here, along with a general history of pigeons in wartime. Put a box of Kleenex next to your laptop for this.

It’s tempting to make a connection between an armed forces veteran saving the skin and tail feathers of possible descendents of other war vets. Actually, Dan learned about the history of the war pigeons long after he rescued his first bird.

“It all started with one little one-legged guy I named Buddy,” Dan said. Dan was out in Lincoln Park when he saw the little bird hobbling along, and felt sorry for him. He started feeding him and wound up taking him home for rehab. At about the same time, an unknown person whom Dan described as a “serial torturer” had been tying pigeon’s feet together and leaving them to suffer.

“They were all tied up the same way, with the same strength,” Dan said. “So I caught the first one. I didn’t know what I was doing any more than you would have. I had about 40 tools with me them, and no antibiotics. I worked with each one for several hours, soaked their feet in hospital betadine. I had no antibiotics at the time—it was a learning process.”

Dan frees a pigeon whose feet were bound, leaving the bird unable to walk properly.

That was the start of Dan’s tireless calling. Daily, he now treats pigeons who were hit by cars, cruelly wounded with fishhooks in the neck and, once, punctured in the head with a blow dart. He has learned about pigeon pox, a virus that is curable with a vaccine and leaves lumps on the bird’s body, and about PMV virus, a neurological disorder that is also treatable but which can kill the birds if not caught quickly. He teamed up with ACS—then Long Beach Animal Control—and wildlife rehabilitation advocates whom he met along the way—Christina Jones of South Bay Wildlife Rehab and Terry Whatley of Village Pond Rescue, among others. His medical bag is now down to a few essentials: a net to catch the birds, peroxide, betadine, charcoal to feed poisoned birds, water, scissors, tweezers, a jeweler’s eyepiece, and a pigeon pouch to carry the sick or wounded back to rehab. He’s rescued a number of rare birds, including a white pigeon that Animal Care Service (ACS) public health associate Debra Brubaker once asked him to come get from the shelter. The bird kept returning to ACS despite various attempts to release him. Dan recognized the bird to be a domesticated racing pigeon and took him from the shelter.

And, once a Marine, always a Marine. Besides being a medic, Dan went commando on a rescue mission in the hundred-year-old American Hotel on Broadway, where pigeons were trapped inside. The hotel is a designated historical landmark and has been under examination by the RDA for future use, but no one considered that the building was inhabited when they boarded up the windows.

“The city had allowed pigeons to fly in there for years, and one day, they decided to board it up and let them die horribly,” Dan said. “Every time a window was broken, they’d board it up. It really was diseased in there after allowing the birds to live in there with no one bothering them. I went in there five times, and every time I went in, I was endangering my life. I took photos inside of the dangerous health problems and even some of the skeletons that may have been in there from the birds getting sealed in the building. I heard later on when a bunch of officials went in, they had full body suits on.”

Dan Lubniewski lowers his facemask as he brings a pigeon out from the American Hotel.

Dan gets upset when he thinks about the combination of thoughtlessness and cruelty that puts so many birds under his wing. “I want people to know that the fishing line they carelessly cut off and leave around ties birds’ legs up and they have to lead a tortured life,” he said. He asks drivers to slow down when they see birds on the street, as they may not be able to fly. Deliberate cruelty is another matter.

“I don’t like people who hurt things weaker than them,” Dan said. “You can feel sorry for any entity that’s abused.”

Dan has been disabled for four out of the five years that he’s been involved in rescue. After leaving the service, he worked as a laborer for Ford Motor Company and as a painting contractor, and was in the Teamsters Union. In 2005, he suffered a degenerative joint disease and left work. After a bout with homelessness and finally receiving his pension and disability payment, he decided to move into his van in a fenced-in area behind a store in downtown Long Beach. There, he worked with animal rescue and pigeon rehab full time, and with few comforts of home.

“This was a small sacrifice—not having electricity,” Dan said. “I lucked out getting them to rent me the area for $250 a month, since it left me about $500 a month to spend on my bird rescue operation.”

Dan’s rehab center, with the lion’s share of space for the pigeons.

Dan had a propane stove, a portable battery for his DVD player, a friend’s house to shower in, and cages everywhere. He lived there for three years, working with his birds, rehabilitating them and then releasing them. He also kept an eye on the neighborhood. Finally, however, someone made a flap to the city about the pigeons, and he was forced to fly the coop.

Dan admits that he may have broken one or two city ordinances, but he is still bitter about the eviction. “All these cages there, they were moving them around, and one of the little babies fell out and died,” he said. “I kept the place clean, and there was no graffiti. Why would you want to get rid of someone who gives a damn?”

A person with whom Dan volunteered offered him an inexpensive rental. Dan moved in with his pets: a pit bull named Babygirl who hooked up with him when he was living in his van, and three cats he’d rescued from the streets and tried to foster. He flunked the fostering, of course, and now kitties Princess, Angel Baby and Shadow live in peaceful coexistence with Dan and Babygirl and whatever feathered patients Dan’s helping. The cats, Dan said, ignore the pigeon patients, and Babygirl licks the birds to comfort them.

“Dogs know that they have a healing tongue,” Dan said.

Wet noses feel good against feathers, too.

In an apartment, the rehab has to be limited to treatment of the birds without keeping them on the property for an extended time. The cages of pigeons from the fenced-in area had all gone to Bruce Caron, another former Marine. Caron has an enormous aviary on his property, in which sick or injured birds are cared for and “soft-released,” which means that they’re free to fly off once they’re rehabbed. The aviary is closed at night so that no predators can get to the birds. Pigeons that are too disabled to be comfortable in the aviary have their own safe “condos.” All of Dan’s pigeons who need more than just a Band-Aid and farewell get the celebrity treatment at Bruce’s.

“Someone told me once that I’m like Steven Seagal,” Dan told us. Whether it’s Seagal-type hero or pigeon champion, he’s a veteran who never stopped being a hero. Animal rights advocate Jane Garrison said it very well:

“In a world that is filled with hatred for pigeons, Dan recognizes that all animals, including pigeons, deserve to be treated humanely. I wish the world had more Dans.”

Happy Veterans Day, Dan Lubniewski, and every hero who has put himself or herself in harm’s way for, as Dan says, any entity.

U.S. Marine Corporal Dan Lubniewski

If you’d like to contact Dan Lubniewski or help with donations for supplies and food for his charges, e-mail him at [email protected].

Visit this page for a video of Bruce Caron’s spoiled pet pigeon, Squeaky. If you can’t stop cooing over him, click on the other videos of Squeaky that come up on YouTube.

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Laramie

Laramie is a 4-month-old terrier who weighs about 5 pounds. He was found in front of a grocery store begging for food one afternoon. He would approach people, look up at them and then go back to his little corner with whatever had been given to him. Finally someone picked him up, fixed him up, and he’s now ready for a new home. Laramie is good with people, children, dogs and cats. He is neutered, vaccinated, dewormed, fecal-tested and treated for flea. We’re now housetraining him. Contact [email protected] or [email protected] if you can give him a good home.