One of our city employees called me at work today to tell me that an owl was
perched in a tree in the city park just a few feet above where the guys were
cutting up a tree felled by a recent storm. He said it just sat there while they
worked just below it, so he figured it was sick or injured. He told me the
Hutchinson Zoo would take it into their wildlife rehab program if someone could
just catch it and wondered if I wanted the job. I asked him if the owl was really
white and fluffy, and if so it was a young one and would leave on its own and be
just fine if left undisturbed. He acknowledged that yes, it was very fluffy, and
when I stopped there an hour later it was gone already. This is the third year in a
row someone has contacted us about an owl somewhere near the park that has
proven to be a juvenile and soon went on its way. Evidently a pair of great horned
owls have hatched and reared a single chick somewhere there in the park each
spring for a few years now.
Joyce and I were first introduced to this fact two years ago when a lady living just
across from the park called us about an owl that had barricaded itself behind a
planter on her patio. We caught what appeared then to be a young great horned
owl, named it Ozzy and kept it in a box in the laundry room overnight. The next
morning Joyce took it to the Hutchinson Zoo which does have an excellent wildlife
rehabilitation program. The lady there was amazed at what she saw. She said they
are deluged each spring with young wildlife, most of which are injured, and many
too badly to survive. But she took one look at Ozzy and told Joyce “You take this
owl back immediately and turn it loose in the park near where it was found.” She
said it was possibly the healthiest specimen they had ever gotten, and that its
parents would find it and make sure it survived. After chasing Ozzy around the
park, trying to get him to stay near the trees and out of sight, we left him there
and sure enough, he disappeared on his own just as she said.
I tell you this story to reiterate that it is indeed the season when new life is born
into the wild, and often some of those babies are found by humans. We humans
have an innate nurturing spirit within us that makes us want to capture and
“help” young wildlife we find. In most cases we are not helping at all as those
babies are just fine and will be found by their mothers as soon as we leave. In
fact, in some cases their mothers may even be watching. Taking a young animal
from the wild actually decreases its chance of survival exponentially. It is also
illegal to possess wildlife without the special permits and training like the people
have that operate the Hutchinson Zoo rehab program.
It would probably have been OK to have moved Ozzy back into the park right
away and left him there, as his folks might’ve had a tough time finding him behind
that planter. But all-in-all, if you love wildlife babies, then leave them where you
find them and trust their mothers to take care of them. Continue to Explore
Kansas Outdoors.
Steve can be contacted by email at [email protected]
