Snowy Owl

This injured snowy owl was found in Hardisty

This injured snowy owl was found in Hardisty. When we picked her up, it was suspected that she was dying of starvation.

Once we got her home and opened the box to assess the damage, things looked different. When we put her on the scale, she weighed in at four and a half pounds. This was my first experience checking the condition of a wild raptor, but when I compared the prominence of her breast bone with my knowledge of conditioning sheep, she didn’t feel thin to me.

Here she is shortly after arriving. We put a soft cover on her perch to help her tender foot.

We carefully checked her wings and legs for broken bones, but couldn’t find any. Yet it was reported that she could only fly a few feet at a time. More puzzling still was her left foot which had a small cut and seemed tender. Our thoughts turned to electrocution, which is common for owls, but the signs just didn’t add up.

I learned to tube feed her fluids every hour or so, since dehydration is a high risk for injured raptors. She ate the mice I caught for her, which was a good sign. But it was very cold that week (-30C), so wild mice were hard to come by and we ended up buying some domestic mice.

It was very worrisome when her mutes (poop) turned from white to brown — a sign of internal bleeding — and later to diarrhea.

While she was with us, she was able to bath off much of the brown dirt you see on her breast. Unfortunately, she didn't quite bath off all the skunk smell she'd picked up on her wild travels.

Meanwhile, various calls were made to arrange for transport to the Medicine River Wildlife Center. Eventually a relay of volunteers was set up and this beautiful snowy owl went off to receive proper care. It was determined she had a cracked sternum, a broken foot, internal bleeding and infection; all likely the result of being hit by a vehicle, which is another common fate for owls.

As of this writing, she is doing well. The internal bleeding was stopped, the infection was addressed and she was recovering nicely in the company of another injured snowy owl — a smaller male who was encouraging her to keep trying to fly.