SUCCESS STORIES

A lucky Red-Tailed hawk

Not too long ago we received a call from a woman who saw a Red-Tailed hawk in the middle of the road close to the Arboretum. She stopped her car in the middle of the road to help the hawk. As you can imagine traffic started to back up. Another kind motorist stopped to help in the opposite direction from the woman. Traffic really started to back up. He had a blanket in his car and covered the hawk with it to calm the bird down. He had to call his girlfriend to let her know he was running late. She was told about the hawk in the middle of the road and that he’d covered the bird with a blanket. Due to poor reception all she heard was “in the middle of the road with a blanket over it”. She proceeded to call 911.

Soon an ambulance and a fire truck showed up. The traffic really started to back up! The first responders were very kind and even had a pair of heavy gloves to lift the bird into a cardboard box to be brought to us.The bird was suffering from shock and stress, but no critical injuries. The bird was treated with fluid therapy and cage rest. He progressed to our 60’ flight enclosure and was released back into the wild. What a lucky bird!

A Lone Goose

One Sunday morning we received a call from a woman who said there was a Canada Goose in her bedroom. Hmmmm. It is hard for us to go after each animal we receive calls from, but we decided to see about the goose. When the woman greeted us at the door she said she had gotten up that morning and went into the guest bedroom to open the blinds. There stood the goose! This really shocked her and thought she was seeing things. She decided to get her hearing aid, glasses and to have a cup of coffee. She went back to the bedroom and sure enough there stood the goose. Her husband came home and she asked him why he had put a goose in the bedroom. He looked very confused to say the least. They then decided to call us.

When we stepped into the bedroom there stood the goose on their bed: a bedroom with white curtains, white bedspread and yes, white carpet. There was goose poop and goose blood everywhere! She had flown through a double plate glass window. The owners weren’t bothered by this, they just wanted to help the goose.

We were able to catch the bird and discovered a large wound underneath her wing that was bleeding quite badly. We left with the goose with Susie held pressure on the wound…..for 3 hours! We were finally able to get a hold of our vet (on a Sunday) and he was able to suture the wound. The best part of rehabilitation? Release! The goose was released about 4 weeks later on the French Broad River. She honked until we couldn’t see her anymore……….

The Oily Great Horned Owl

We received a Great Horned owl that was covered with a very greasy substance from head to tail. There were no apparent injuries. We weren’t sure where to begin as we did not know what the substance was. We had no idea where the bird had gotten into this. After many phone calls we found a chemist on the east coast that was willing to analyze the substance using gas chromatography. We sent him a feather and waited for the analysis. He called to let us know that it was definitely an old grease like substance. Maybe a vat of used vegetable oil? What we did not know was how to remove the grease. The chemist told us the best solvent to use would be Everclear! We had to work on one small area at a time so the bird would not get intoxicated or toxic. So we did this for several weeks and finally removed all of the grease. He was then able to fly and soon released.

Wild for Life is a 501(c)3
non-profit organization
56-2165782