A red-tailed hawk nursed back to health by local volunteers
after she was found with gunshot wounds almost a year ago soared
hundreds of feet above the ground moments after being released back
into her natural habitat in Morgan Hill.
A red-tailed hawk nursed back to health by local volunteers after she was found with gunshot wounds almost a year ago soared hundreds of feet above the ground moments after being released back into her natural habitat in Morgan Hill.
Her former handlers from the Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation Center gushed as they watched the bird, who they named “Hope” shortly after taking her into their care, join a turkey vulture and another red-tailed hawk against a cloudless sky high above the Machado School in west Morgan Hill Tuesday.
“Imagine the joy she’s feeling now,” said WERC executive director Sue Howell as she gazed up at Hope’s disappearing silhouette.
WERC has rehabilitated and released “hundreds” of red-tailed hawks back into their natural habitats over the last 20 years of the nonprofit organization’s existence. They have done the same for countless other birds, mammals and reptiles. Just in the last two weeks, the group which is run fully by volunteers and private donations has released three bobcats, two barn owls, and two possums.
Hope was found in Hollister and brought to WERC’s rehabilitation center in unincorporated west Morgan Hill in Dec. 2008. Suffering with wounds from a shotgun blast, Hope was unable to fly with a broken wing and other injuries. X-ray images of the bird’s skeleton show several white dots indicating lead pellets permanently lodged in her wings and near her beak.
For the next 300 days, the hawk was treated and rehabilitated by a San Jose veterinarian and WERC volunteers who are trained to handle wild animals. As she slowly regained movement and flexibility in her broken wing, Hope moved into enclosures of increasing size, starting with a small pen about the size of a walk-in closet.
“She ate more than 1,000 mice” at WERC, Howell told a group of about 60 local Barrett Elementary School children on a field trip Tuesday.
She was eventually moved into the facility’s biggest flight pen, a 100-foot-long mesh cage, where she demonstrated to her handlers that she was ready to return to the boundless skies. When volunteers entered the enclosure to retrieve Hope for her release Tuesday morning, she repeatedly flew into the netting that enclosed her, apparently attempting to fly farther than she could.
In fact, Hope had received minor cuts on her beak while she continually flew into the walls of her enclosures while in captivity.
“She was always wild,” Howell said.
The volunteers checked Hope’s wings and inspected her flight muscles, and determined she was ready for her release at the Machado School on Sycamore Drive Tuesday morning. The site was an ideal location for Hope, as WERC board member and birder Jane Haley identified another red-tailed hawk flying nearby above the steep hills and large pine trees.
Howell gave a brief presentation to the assembled young students, telling Hope’s story and showing them another hawk whose injuries are too severe to allow its release and now serves as an “education animal” for WERC. Then, Hope vanished seconds after volunteer Colleen Grzan placed her on the ground for her release.
Minutes later, she was flying more than 300 feet in the air.
WERC volunteers have been busy this week, fulfilling their objective of treating injured wild animals so they can return to their homes. Tuesday afternoon, volunteers released a young adult bobcat in Morro Bay, near where it was found. Last Sunday, another bobcat was released near Fresno – mammals have to be released within three miles of where they were found, Howell explained.
Also, Tuesday night WERC released two barn owls back into the woods on different sides of Morgan Hill, and two possums were scheduled for release Wednesday night, Howell said.
But the organization’s work is never over, as Howell noted that Tuesday night another barn owl was hit by a car and picked up by animal control authorities. And shortly after Hope was released Tuesday, Howell received a call from authorities who picked up another red-tailed hawk that had been shot in Morgan Hill.
“As we were releasing Hope, another hawk was shot and fell to the ground,” Howell said.
